


it is (not) so dreadful here

by QueenOfCarrotFlowers



Series: Carrot's Dark Stories [16]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: 10 Cloverfield Lane AU, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Complex Consent Issues, Dark, Darkfic, Dubious Consent, Exhibitionism, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/M, Guns, Inspired by Hades and Persephone (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Kidnapping, Non-Graphic Violence, Smut, Trope Subversion/Inversion, Virgin Ben Solo, Voyeurism, arguably noncon, but maybe it will subvert back..., reasonably happy ending, untagged character (to avoid spoiler), welp there it went
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-12-12
Packaged: 2021-01-15 02:08:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21245747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenOfCarrotFlowers/pseuds/QueenOfCarrotFlowers
Summary: After stopping for gas on her way home from being dumped by her boyfriend, Rey wakes up to find herself in an underground bunker with a man who calls himself Ben. Ben tells her that a massive chemical attack has rendered the air unbreathable, and their only hope of survival is to remain inside. Despite the comforts of home and a developing attraction to her captor, Rey wants to leave. When she discovers the truth, Rey will have to make a choice: will she go, or stay with Ben?*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*Hades and Persephone meets 10 Cloverfield Lane





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LonelyLavenderBones](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LonelyLavenderBones/gifts).

> This is for LonelyLavenderBones, based on her prompt: "Hades and Persephone, but just the dynamics. Lonely Ben sees a pretty Rey and kidnaps her. Greek, historical, or modern AU. Heck, canon-verse if your muse takes you there. Doesn't have to be fantastical, but I love a good horny devil with a dash of dub-con."
> 
> Amanda, I'm so glad to know you. You're a lovely person and I love your stories, too. I hope this is a decent take on your prompt! I will be updating every Wednesday until it's done.
> 
> flypaper_brain is my beta, and she's the best.

Pan the camera out. Rey is a woman - young, twenty-two or so. She's wearing a sundress; it's black with a pattern of large sunflowers splashed all over. The dress is pretty, but a bit messy, just like the woman who wears it. Her long chestnut hair is piled on top of her head and a pair of oversized sunglasses obscure her face. She drives an older model sedan of some undetermined color; the windows are open and loose strands of hair fly around her face as she sings along with Prince on the local radio station.

_How can you just leave me standing?_  
_Alone in a world that's so cold _  
_Maybe I'm just too demanding_  
_Maybe I'm just like my father, too bold_

Rey needs to get away; she needs to get home. Not that Baton Rouge is really her home, but since Poe dumped her this morning - after a long night of sex, after _anal_ \- it's a hell of a lot more home than his place in New Orleans.

The light next to the gas gauge flashes on at the same time a muted _ding_ sounds. Rey sighs; she'd wanted to fill up on her way over yesterday, but the station had been closed - a rare event, maybe even unheard of - and she'd had enough gas to get her all the way to Poe's and then halfway back again, so it wasn't like she was going to run out of gas. Anyway, she'd been so excited to see Poe after her exams had kept her away for two weeks… fucking Poe. She laughs without humor and turns the radio up.

_Maybe you're just like my mother_  
_She's never satisfied _  
_Why do we scream at each other?_  
_This is what it sounds like_  
_When doves cry_

As she's turning into her regular gas stop - a tired old place exactly halfway between the two cities - the song is interrupted by an _emergency news bulletin_. 

Rey doesn't give a fuck; broken-hearted people rarely do. She turns the radio off with a flourish and comes to a stop next to the single pump that sits in the middle of the lot like a standing stone on Salisbury Plain. The air is hot and moist with just a little breeze to keep it from being unbearable; the dust plays around her old Doc Martens as she pumps. The thing is so old she has to hold the handle to keep the petrol moving. It is a minor annoyance; stopping here for gas is worth it to her for the audience. Always has been, even when she was with Poe.

Ah, there he is, peeking out at her through the grubby window next to the register. The gas station guy. She can't see him clearly right now but when she goes in to pay, there he is. She risks sidelong glances as she examines the chip options (even more basic than usual) and grabs a Coke from the cooler. Every time she looks over at him he's staring at her, and it is obvious that he doesn't care that she sees him. He's so blatant about it, her logical brain reminds her it's creepy behavior and she should be afraid, but her ego likes it. He gazes at her with eyes the color of whiskey like she's a goddess made of meat and she likes it. Poe certainly never looked at her like that.

It's been this way every time she's stopped here - twice a weekend for the year and a half she dated Poe, driving two hours after work on Friday evening and another two back on Sunday afternoon. It’s always been a bit of a lark for her, a chance to feel pretty, to feel wanted. She wonders if gas station guy notices the odd timing - she’s never been here on Saturday morning. She wonders if he’ll mention it. He’s never even spoken to her - she wonders, not for the first time, what his voice sounds like.

Rey eyes him as she saunters up the center aisle to the register, walking just a bit more slowly than necessary. He’s tall, big really, and everything about him is thick and large - large hands, and thighs, a large nose and thick, pink lips. Big brown eyes gaze at her as she strolls past the candy bars and cans of ravioli. His hair is long and thick, just touching his shoulders. She considers what it would be like to touch his shoulders, too. 

She’s single now. She could do it.

He’s been here every time she's come in; she assumes he must own the place, or maybe his dad does - he's not very old, 30 or so, but he's the only person she's ever seen working here. He's always grimy, a little greasy, his jeans are dirty and don't fit well and his work shirt looks like it's never seen a laundry room. She got close to him once when he was filling the cooler and she was grabbing a Coke and she thought he smelled good - a natural kind of scent, like rain or fallen leaves - which had surprised her.

He never wears a nametag. 

“Hey,” Rey says, setting her chips and bottle of soda on the chipped linoleum countertop, and meeting his eyes. “Gas, and this.” The little fan behind the counter blows strands of hair across her face, and she pushes them behind her ear. The radio drones quietly - not the usual classic rock, but the news bulletin again, which they both ignore. The guy stares down at her. His eyes flick to her lips and he swallows before scanning her Coke, and then he picks up the small bag of Doritos. He frowns, eyebrows drawing together, and he glances back up at her with an expression of deep concern.

“Not Cool Ranch?”

His voice is deep and rich, perhaps a bit quieter than she expected. But it’s a good voice. Mesmerizing. 

Rey always buys Cool Ranch Doritos; he’d noticed. Rey shrugs.

“There weren’t any Cool Ranch on the shelf.”

He sets the bag down and places his large hands on the countertop, palms down. She can’t keep her eyes off them.

“Would you rather have Cool Ranch?” He’s almost whispering, and he leans closer. “I think there’s a box in the back. I can go get you some.” His breath, warm on her cheek, smells like spearmint gum.

Rey shivers, even though the store is very warm despite the valiant attempt on the part of the poor fan. 

“Sure,” she answers. Her eyes follow him as he steps down and around from behind the counter, until he disappears, the scrape of the door to the back room closing behind him followed by heavy footsteps into the dark beyond. While she waits she checks her phone. Twitter is hopping, there seems to be excitement about some new apocalypse movie - literally everyone on her timeline is talking about it. Rey doesn’t care about movies, so she closes the app and stares out the window. One car zips by on the state road, heading north, followed quickly by another, and then three more. Lots of traffic for so early on a Saturday.

The phone vibrates and she checks the screen. It’s Poe, and she declines the call before it vibrates a second time. He calls back right away, just as she hears the door to the back room scrape open again. She declines this call, too, and turns off the phone for good measure. She begins to turn around, about to make some quip about unwanted phone calls, but before she can a strong arm wraps around her waist and a sweet-smelling cloth is pressed over her face, and everything goes black. 


	2. Chapter 2

Close-up. Rey awakens to stomach cramps and a sore throat. She’s cool, which must feel nice after the heat of the gas station. The air moves pleasantly across her face, although when she breathes it in it’s stale on her nose and her tongue, not fragrant from the magnolia tree outside of her bedroom window. But she’s not in her bedroom and this isn’t her bed; the mattress is hard and slightly lumpy, although the blanket that covers her is soft and warm. On instinct she reaches out for Poe, but instead of her boyfriend her hand finds the edge of the mattress and slips off, her fingers dropping down to brush against something stiff and cold - metal.

Her stomach feels like death, and she leans over the edge of the bed and heaves. Nothing comes up, which she decides is probably bad. Her mouth is dry. 

The room she’s in is filled with light, and she squints for a minute or so to give her eyes a chance to acclimate. Once she can she sits up and glances around. It’s a small room, maybe ten feet by ten feet, and plain, with no windows, although there’s air flowing from a narrow vent on the other side of the room towards the ceiling. The light emanates from three fluorescent bars that cut across the ceiling like scars of brightness. The ceiling itself is made of foam tiles designed to look like stucco.

A heavy-looking metal door with a pushbar and small window near the top is in the wall directly to her left. That wall is painted a creamy yellow, like unsalted butter, although the other three walls are covered with a large mural. Rey ventures to get to her feet; there is something about the mural that makes her want to get a closer look.

It's a garden; a flower garden, like something from the books about bunnies that she used to read in the library when her daddy and mommy were at work; back when she had a daddy and a mommy. The work is exquisitely done, each flower perfect and immediately recognizable: lavender and hollyhock and irises and tulips and on and on… rose bushes with blooms so pink and perfect she can almost smell them. Each flower and the sky, a dreamy blue that reminds Rey of an almost forgotten childhood, is lit by a summer sun that is barely out of reach.

By the time Rey is done examining the garden mural she is crying, although she couldn't tell you why. She turns around, facing the room again, and despite the beautiful walls the aesthetic of the entire room is reminiscent of a hospital. The bed, a little metal cot, doesn’t look like a hospital bed to Rey but it does look institutional - not something for a home, but something for a place where you stick people when you don’t really want them. Rey knows all about places like that, and the thought of being in another one overwhelms her with panic. 

She rushes towards the door, but before she touches it it opens, and he steps in. The man from the gas station. She is so shocked she backs into the cot and lands on her bottom with a bounce against the metal base.

He stares at her while the door swings shut behind him, and she stares at him.

"Where am I?" 

"You're my guest." In contrast to her voice - teary, on the edge of hysteria, his is smooth, calm, deep, and it soothes her. She breathes. She can't take her eyes off him. "How are you feeling?"

"Sick." She sets her hand on her tummy. "Hungry, maybe. My throat hurts."

"What do you remember?" He crouches down, placing himself just below her eye level. He looks different than she's ever seen him before. He's clean, for one thing; his hair that is usually messy is pulled back into a neat ponytail. His clothing - t-shirt, open flannel, jeans, and boots - are all black. He might be wearing eyeliner. His nails are painted black.

"I remember… shit." She remembers Poe dumping her over eggs Benedict and a basket of beignets, but she's not telling him that. What next? "I stopped for gas. I pumped and came inside to pay. You were out of Cool Ranch Doritos, and that annoyed me. I…" He is gazing at her intensely, leaning forward on his toes. "I don't remember anything else."

The man visibly relaxes, shoulders lowering, a long exhale.

"You don't remember the emergency alert?"

Prodded, she remembers that there was one. She nods.

"Did you hear what it was?"

She shakes her head. The corner of his mouth twists up, the ghost of a smile; her belly tightens, and further down, too. She isn't sure if she likes it.

"Fallout." He says quietly. His hands twist, and she notices that he’s holding something in them. Fabric, decorated with flowers. 

"Fallout? Like the game?"

He smiles at her, but it's a sad smile.

"No. Like, nuclear fallout. Or chemical. An attack, they said. You, uh…" he looks at his hands, then back. "You freaked out a little, when you heard. I had to carry you down here. We're in a bunker, underground. My grandpa built it when he came home from Vietnam."

Rey's head is suddenly light. She lays down sideways on the bed, pulling her feet up behind her. Her feet are bare but she can’t see her boots anywhere. 

"How far underground?"

"Hundred feet. Much deeper and we’d risk hitting the water table.”

“That’s so deep.” Too deep. Rey closes her eyes and breathes.

“I, uh, have a radio, but I can’t reach any stations. We have food, enough to last. Dry stuff, and cans, and, uh, a little garden? Thought you might like that.”

She squinches one eye barely open. The man is a dark splotch against the grey and yellow of the wall and door behind him. He no longer kneels but sits with his legs folded in front of him, and is still twisting the fabric in his lap. It’s yellow, a similar shade to the wall, printed with large garlands of flowers - red, purple, pink, with greenery. 

“Do you want to eat? Go to the bathroom? There’s a flushing toilet.”

Rey is surprised to find that she doesn’t need to go to the bathroom, but being alone for a moment is an attractive idea, so she sits up and allows the man to lead her through the door. It opens at his touch, apparently unlocked.

The room they’ve been in is at the end of a wide hallway lined with floor-to-ceiling metal shelves full of cans and boxes of food. There is a lot of pancake mix and cans of tuna and chicken, and several boxes of bread mix. The hallway leads to a large room, concrete but with comfortable looking furniture arranged into a little sitting area- a long sofa and a couple of chairs with a coffee table in the center, upon which sat a laptop and a glass of clear liquid on one end - and a kitchen beyond. The room had been divided with drywall, on the right and the left, and each wall has a door in it. The one to the right is closed, the one to the left open, and through it Rey can see the edge of a toilet and a sink beyond. Two other doors are on the other wall, to the right of the kitchen area. One is a pushbar door, similar to the one in the room she woke up in, including a small window through which shines a bright, blue-tinted light. The other is more like something you’d see in a bank vault. That had to be the door that led to the outside, and Rey takes care not to stare at it too longingly. 

The man gestures around. “Here it is, home sweet home. For a while, anyway. The bathroom’s there.” Rey steps past him, and he reaches out to touch her arm. She pulls away as if burned. He swallows, and holds out the thing he has in his hand. “Here, if you want to change.” She grabs the fabric and escapes into the bathroom.

Rey showers, masturbates, brushes her teeth with the wrapped toothbrush she’d found by the sink, and changes into the clothing the man had given to her. It was a dress - a flowery sundress, exactly the type of dress she preferred. And he would know, wouldn’t he, having seen her in similar dresses more times than she could count. He'd given her clean underwear, too, pink and cotton and exactly her size. The implications of all this make her stomach churn but she isn’t going to do anything stupid. Rey may be many things, but she is not stupid.

She steps out of the bathroom to find the man closing the laptop. 

“Are you feeling better? I’m heating some soup.” 

As soon as he says it she can smell it - chicken noodle. The scent makes her stomach churn again, but she nods and sits down at the table, behind a place already set. A placemat - cloth, embroidered with flowers around the edges; a tall glass, empty; and a soup spoon, set to the left of the placemat on top of a folded cloth napkin that matches the placemat. 

The man brings bowls to the table and then returns to the kitchen for a pitcher he pulls from the small refrigerator. He sits down, moving his own napkin to his lap, and pours water into both of their glasses. Finally, he eats, giving her an encouraging smile before blowing across his spoon and taking the first bite. Rey follows suit, taking sips of hot soup while she glances around the room. There is a shelf in the kitchen housing a selection of small appliances - a bread machine, a hand mixer, a toaster. The space is clean and tidy; the pot in which the man heated their canned soup has already been washed and dried, and rests upside-down on the drainboard. Blankets are folded and draped over the back of the sofa and both chairs. The light in here, as in the bathroom and the other room, is fluorescent and bright nearly to the point of blinding. She has looked for light switches in every room, but has yet to see one.

The man eats faster than Rey does, and when he’s finished he sets down his spoon and breaks the silence.

“Rey, I’m glad you’re here.” Rey drops her spoon with a clatter, and his cheeks flush. “I mean,” he continues quickly, “that you were at the station instead of somewhere else when the attack happened. That I was there to help you.”

She picks up her spoon and nods, taking another sip of soup. 

“I think you’ll be happy here, you know, until it’s safe to leave. I have some movies on my laptop, and a bunch of board games. Do you like board games?”

Rey shrugs. “They’re okay. I don’t play much.”

“My parents kept all the ones from when I was a kid, so they’re here. Do you remember Rose Petal Place? You’re probably too young for Rose Petal Place.”

She sets down her spoon and pushes the bowl away.

“I’m done, thank you.”

The man hops up and carries the bowls back to the kitchen. Rey watches him wash and dry the bowls, his shoulders moving beneath his loose black flannel shirt. While his back is turned she looks again at the vault-like door to the outside. It has a wheel in the center, a locking mechanism of some kind, and she has no idea how it might work. There are more air vents near the ceiling; there had been one in the bathroom, too. He speaks again, and she turns her attention back to him.

“I’ll make some bread now, so we can have fresh bread for dinner. Okay? I have, uh, white or rye.” He holds two boxes up so she can see them. “Do you have a preference?”

“White, please.”

His smile, almost giddy, shows off his crooked teeth. He adds water to the mix in the bread machine, which is plugged into a regular-looking socket in the wall behind the counter.

“Where is the electricity from?”

“Ah,” he answers, and gestures for her to join him in the sitting area, which she does. He sits in the middle of the sofa; she claims a chair. He scoots to the edge of the sofa to be closer to her. The laptop is also plugged in; there’s an electric socket in the floor under the coffee table. “Well, there’s solar energy, and wind. There’s a backup generator down here too, and kerosene, but that’s only for emergencies.”

“Right. So presumably the sun is still shining?”

“And the wind is still blowing, yes.” He pulls the laptop to himself and opens it, then clicks around a bit before turning it so Rey can see it. On the screen is some kind of software desktop, showing the relative charges on what appear to be several batteries. “You can see, the energy is stored here…” he points, and explains, and as he does Rey half listens and half takes note of the other options and tabs visible on the screen. She nods when it seems appropriate, and eventually he closes the computer again.

“So,” he says after a moment, looking relaxed, “would you like to see the garden? I really think you’ll like it. It’s mostly vegetables, but there’s a corner where I’m trying to grow some flowers.”

Rey’s heart clenches and her tummy flips, but she nods and follows him to the second door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [The dress he gives Rey to wear is like this one, only yellow](https://www.forever21.com/us/shop/catalog/product/f21/dress/2000303014)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note the addition of the "Trope Subversion/Inversion" tag. Sorry if this disappoints anyone.

Tracking shot. The garden is another large room, maybe twenty by twenty feet, filled with shelves of green growing things. It's very warm in there, and slightly humid, and the scent is overwhelmingly organic. Rey breathes it deeply and urges it to hold her calm. The room would be beautiful were it not for the unnatural glow of the grow lights that cast an eerie, almost unworldly light over everything. She follows the man to a back corner, where a plant tray sits on the ground by itself. He steps back to make room for her.

The tray, about three feet wide and six feet long, is covered with flowers, the same ones from the murals in the room she woke up in; all Rey's favorites. The harsh light can't hide their beauty, and they smell wonderful. She leans in to breathe in the scent of the lavender and closes her eyes, willing the tears not to come.

"Do you like it?" The man says, his voice hopeful. She glances at him. He is staring at her, eyes wide. His expression is reminiscent of a puppy waiting for you to throw his ball, and the comparison makes her feel nauseated.

"What's your name?" She asks, because she doesn't feel like answering.

His face falls. "I'm Ben. I thought you knew."

She swallows. "How would I know that? You never wear a nametag."

"Well, I mean," he says, shrugging, "I know your name. I know all about you."

She can't look at him anymore, so she looks back at the flowers instead.

"How?" Her fingers brush against a tea rose and it releases a sweet burst of aroma into the stale air.

"The first time, you paid with a card." He's taken a step closer, still not touching, but if she concentrates she might be able to feel the heat of his body on her shoulder. "Once I had your name it wasn't hard. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram." A warm fingertip strokes tenderly against her shoulder and she shudders. "You take the most beautiful photos, it's obvious how much you love those flowers." Another step and he's pressed against her now, his breath hot on her neck. Her stomach churns and her nipples are hard and she hates it. "Poe never deserved you. I'll be so much better to you than he ever was."

It's the mention of her ex boyfriend that finally snaps her out of it. With a shout she spins around and kicks out, landing a solid blow against his knee even in her bare feet, and he topples over with a shout, almost bringing down one of the shelves of plants with him. She hops over his grasping hands and runs back into the main room. She checks the door but it doesn't appear to have a lock on the outside, and she can hear him yelling and moving inside the garden room. 

She doesn't try the door to the outside, even though it feels like it's calling her. She couldn't take that disappointment.

Heart pounding, she high-tails it to the only place that feels even remotely safe: the bathroom.

Rey slams the door behind her and leans against it, sliding to the floor in a heap. She raises her hands to her face and they come back wet; she wasn't able to hold back the tears after all. She sits like that, wiping her face and shuddering with an uncertain emotion, and she waits for Ben to come break down the door.

He must be so angry. He's been stalking her for over a year, following her social media. He must know everything about her - where she lives, her friends, favorite food, details of her relationship with Poe. And now she's stuck with him. Well, until she can escape, obviously. She's going to escape.

How open had Rey been online about Poe? Pretty darn open. What does Ben do when he thinks about her? Probably the same thing she used to do when she thought about him. The thought sends an unexpected thrill down her spine.

Long minutes pass and there is no sound from outside the room. She suspects that he's lurking outside the door, waiting until she moves and he can open it easily, so she sits quietly until her bladder is shrieking and she can't wait any longer. She slowly crawls over to the toilet and curses how loud the tinkling of the urine echoes around the room. She keeps her eyes on the door and wipes quickly, but there's still no sound or movement.

She doesn't bother washing her hands before returning to her station in front of the door. The dress she'd been wearing when she arrived is still there, a ball of black and yellow fabric tossed in the corner of the room. Rey slides it over and rests her head on it. It's probably not the most comfortable makeshift pillow but it will do.

Rey closes her eyes and tries to sleep, but she can't stop thinking about Ben. His height and breadth; implicitly dangerous, and yet as far as she could tell he'd made no effort to hurt her. She'd hurt him and he hadn't come for her. What would Poe have done if she'd kicked him in the knee and knocked him down? Probably nothing very nice.

Ben has beautiful eyes, and Rey likes the way he looks at her. It's creepy, oh it is. He's a creepy stalker and maybe he kidnapped her. She can't remember, after all. Maybe there wasn't a chemical attack at all. Maybe he's lying.

But he has beautiful eyes and lips and his hands are large and they are probably warm, and Rey really wants to sleep but she _can't_, and it's these things she's thinking about as she lifts her hips and slides her underwear down and off. She slips a finger inside and wonders how Ben's would feel, one or even two. She strokes her clit and thinks about his mouth, his tongue, his pretty pink lips kissing her cunt and sucking her inner lips. He's a creep but he could make her come, and with that thought she comes for real, holding her breath to keep from making too much noise.

That does the trick. Too tired to stand, Rey licks her essence off her fingers and wipes them on her dress pillow. She is fast asleep very soon after.

* * *

When Rey awakes she has no sense of how much time has passed. The room is light, but she doesn't know how the lighting in the bunker works. Is it on a timer? Maybe the lights never shut off. She chuckles at the irony - stuck underground and it's never dark. There is a scent, a new one, sweet and warm. A scent she knows well.

She sits up, stretches, and there is a gentle knock on the door.

"Rey, are you awake? I'm sorry if I scared you. I, uh, do that sometimes. I made you something."

Rey pulls her underwear back on and sits up on her knees on the hard tile.

"You made ginger cake," she says to the door. "I can smell it."

"Yes, ginger cake. The recipe you posted on your last birthday. I, uh, had to make some substitutions, for the fresh stuff, but it should be okay. It smells okay. You said it's your favorite." The chink of metal against china sounds from the other side of the door. Rey's stomach growls.

"It is my favorite," she admits. 

"Come out and have some, please, before it cools down. Or don't, I can set it here and you can stay in there…"

Rey stands and opens the door. She can tell now that Ben had been wearing eyeliner after all, because his tears have made black streaks down his face. He's kneeling, as he had been in the room after she woke up. She likes him like this, kneeling on the floor with a plate of hot ginger cake, black tear streaks down his cheeks. She likes it very much.

"I'll take the cake." 

He lifts the plate up, like an offering, and she takes it from his hands but remains standing in the doorway. The tines of the fork penetrate the tender cake and the corner of the piece separates easily. Steam rises, and Rey lowers the fork until it floats in front of his mouth.

"You take the first bite, Ben. I insist."

He cocks his head, confused. "Why? I made it for you, just for you."

"You might be trying to poison me. You figured out that I'm not who you thought and maybe you want to get rid of me."

Ben's expression moves from confused to horrified with nothing in between, and he lunges forward to take the chunk of cake into his mouth. He doesn't even chew before swallowing it.

"I would never hurt you," he swears, a fresh tear slipping down his right cheek. "Never. I just want to take care of you, to make you happy. I don't think anybody's tried to make you happy before."

Rey looks at the cake and swallows down the lump in her throat. She cuts another sliver of cake, a bit larger than the piece she fed to Ben, and lifts the fork to her mouth. The cake is soft, flavorful with ginger and allspice, and barely sweet. Perfect; it's perfect. 

Ben is still kneeling, his hands outstretched, that puppy dog look back on his face again. This time, Rey is able to give him what he wants.

"It's good," she says, then takes a second bite. Once she's chewed and swallowed that one, she says, "I like it."

Ben lowers his head and brings his hands to the ground, taking a deep breath that makes his back expand under his black flannel shirt.

"Thank you," he breathes. He may as well be telling her he loves her.

There's something about this that makes Rey feel brave. She takes another bite of cake and talks around it.

"You're a real creep, you know that?" Her heart-rate picks up as the words escape her lips, a spike of fear at how he might react to her harsh words, but he just sighs.

"Yeah, I know."

"Well I'm glad you know. But still. It's fucking creepy to stalk people, to follow their social media and… collect their favorite recipes and shit. To decorate your bunker with murals and…" she gestures down the front of her body, "fuck, buy them _dresses_? What the fuck, Ben?"

"I didn't know," he starts, and she opens her mouth to respond but he pushes forward. "I mean, yes I _know_ those things are _objectively_ creepy. I'm not _stupid_. I mean I wasn't going to do anything. You are completely out of my league. I just had fantasies…"

Rey takes another bite of cake and waits for him to continue, but apparently that is all he has to say.

"So what, you did all this for like… fantasy me?"

Ben shrugs, gaze focused on the ground.

"I guess. Like, my grandpa - who built the bunker - he always said that if my gramma had lived he'd have made it all pretty for her, someplace she wouldn't mind spending her life if she had to. _Benny_, he'd say - he always called me Benny - _Benny, when I pass, keep it pretty for a lady, even if you don't have one, because you never know_."

"So you kept it pretty for me… just in case?"

"Yeah!" He exclaimed, finally looking up at her. "Yeah! But I never thought it would actually _happen_."

Rey takes another bite of cake, then another, and she is thinking while she eats. Eventually she takes the last bite of cake and smacks her lips.

"Delicious," she murmurs, and smiles at him. He raises his hands again to take the plate from her hands.

"You like it," he breathes, a statement of wonder rather than a question, although she answers him anyway.

"I love it. Have you ever eaten pussy?"

The plate crashes to the floor, fragments of china flying in every direction, but Ben seems not to notice at all.

"What?" His hands shake.

"Have you ever eaten pussy? You know, gone down on a woman? Eaten tacos for dinner? Had -"

"I, uh, know what you mean." He interrupts her, and his voice shakes as much as his hands. "I have not. I'm a creep, remember? Creepy Ben, that's me. I haven't even kissed anybody."

He looks miserable and Rey wants to laugh, but she doesn't. Instead she asks another question.

"So, would you like to kiss me?"

Ben's face brightens and Rey realizes again how beautiful his smile is. He's a creep, but he seems to be a sweet one. "Please," he crawls closer. "Please, Rey. Nothing more I want than to kiss you."

"I'll tell you what, Creepy Ben," Rey says with a smirk, reaching up her dress to grip the waistband of her underwear. "If you can make me come with your mouth - twice, at least twice - I'll let you kiss me. On my other lips." He boggles up at her as she pulls the underwear down in one smooth stroke and kicks them into the living area. "Deal?"

"But I… I…" he stares at her, desperate. "I don't know how to do it!"

"Well," she says, taking his hand and pulling him to standing, "guess you better learn." She glances at the shards of china spread around the floor. "Better sweep this up first, though."

Ben hops to the kitchen to get the broom, and Rey presses her thighs together in anticipation. _This situation, as fucked up as it is, might not be so terrible after all_, she thinks to herself. _Might as well have some fun before I leave_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You too can make a delicious ginger cake for the nice lady you keep in your underground bunker. [Here is a recipe](https://tastesbetterfromscratch.com/gingerbread-cake/).
> 
> LonelyLavenderBones made a beautiful moodboard for the story!! I love it so much <3 <3 <3  



	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look ma, there's smut!
> 
> I updated the tags because I can no longer tell what exactly is happening. There are all kinds of consent issues happening in this chapter and if you're sensitive to that you might want to click out.
> 
> I also took it off anon. Hi, it's me, I'm back on my bullshit. 
> 
> A million thanks to my beta, flypaper_brain, for her encouragement and brainstorming and, of course, for making my prose more readable. And a special shoutout to the ladies on Discord, for being amazing and supportive. I love you all!
> 
> Edited to add: I made a new moodboard - Kylo Ben in eyeliner!
> 
>   


Fade in. It is ten minutes later. Ben swept up the china and is now lying on his back on the cot in the room that Rey supposes is supposed to be hers. While he was in the kitchen he’d wiped off his face, so the black streaks from the eyeliner were now light grey splotches across his cheeks. Whatever. Rey doesn’t care about his makeup or lack thereof; Rey is excited because he’s going to put his mouth on her cunt, and he is obviously thinking about that, and it’s making him nervous and excited. His eyes are wide, and shining, his mouth open and panting. She likes him like this.

His jeans are tight across the front. She’s curious about his cock, and she considers asking him to show it to her, but she doesn’t want to get distracted. So instead she crawls on the bed next to him and leans down into his face. 

“Hey, Creepy Ben,” she breathes, her lips only inches from his own. He glances down at her lips quickly and then back to her eyes.

“Hi, Rey.” He replies, and then licks his lips and swallows.

“Do you know what a cunt looks like, Ben? Have you watched porn? Do you know the different bits?”

Ben squeezes his eyes tightly and turns his head away from Rey, but he answers her question.

“I don’t like porn. But I did some research once.”

Rey waits for a moment, patiently. With his head turned she can reach the hairband holding his ponytail in place. She gently tugs the hairband out and runs her fingers through his soft tresses before she speaks again.

“Tell me the bits, Ben.”

His face is a fiery red, twisted up in embarrassment, and Rey smiles and considers stroking his cheek. She doesn’t, but she thinks about it.

“Oh, god. Um, there’s the clitoris. Uh, clit. It’s a bundle of nerves, under a hood.”

Ben pauses, and Rey hums. “The clit is a very good thing for you to know about. Don’t be too rough with it. Go on.”

“Okay, uh. The lips? Labia. Inner and outer. Uh. They protect-”

“Yes, fine,” Rey interrupts him, reaching between her legs and slipping a finger between her own labia. Ben doesn’t see her do it, because his eyes are still shut tight. Hearing him talk about women’s genitals is getting her excited. “What else?”

“Uh. Oh god, okay. The vagina. Uh, the opening. That’s where, uh.” He pauses to swallow, and Rey takes immense pleasure in his discomfort. She leans even closer.

“That’s where you put the cock, Creepy Ben. If you’re _very good_, that’s where you fuck me. Okay?”

Ben makes a noise in his throat, something between a whine and a growl, and Rey takes her finger from between her legs and holds it in front of his nose. His nostrils flare and his eyes fly open, and very suddenly he is staring into her soul. Just like that.

“What is that smell?” He breathes in deeply, focusing on her fingers, which she lowers and places between his lips.

“That’s what my pussy smells like, Ben. It’s going to be all over your face very soon. Do you like it?”

He sucks her finger into his mouth, his tongue warm and very wet against her digit. He nods, and makes that noise again. Rey likes that noise, she wants him to make it more, so she pulls her hand out of his mouth, wipes it on her pretty yellow sundress, lifts the dress up to her hips, and straddles his face. 

The noise Ben makes as he pulls her cunt down against his mouth is pure growl - the whine has gone elsewhere, taken a walk or something, Rey doesn’t know. She doesn’t care, either, because she’s been rendered temporarily incapable of thought.

“_Fuuuuuuuck_.” The word is long and drawn-out, and it’s pretty much all she can say. Rey’s cunt is in Ben’s mouth and it’s _perfect_. Now, if she were to tell you exactly what she likes when it comes to having her pussy eaten, she’d probably describe something that wasn’t quite as rough as what Ben is doing to her. He’s sucking her clit a bit harder than she’d want, pressing his tongue with more pressure than she’d describe as her ideal, holding her hips a bit roughly and holding her against him with too much strength. She’d probably say that she doesn’t _really_ like having a tongue in her vagina. That’s what she’d tell you. But Ben is doing these things to her, all these things. He’s never had a cunt on his mouth before and this is _Rey_, and he is making up for lost time and even though it isn’t her ideal, Rey can’t remember the last time she had oral that was this good. She thinks maybe never.

She has a plan, though, and losing her mind on Ben’s face isn’t actually part of that plan. She returns to her senses as quickly as she can, picks her dress up from where it’s fallen over Ben’s eyes, pulls it tight behind her, and leans over to grab his hair in her fists. His eyes, which have been squeezed shut, open wide and quickly find hers.

“Do you like my pussy, Creepy Ben?”

He makes a few humming noises and somehow manages to suck her clit at the same time his tongue laps the skin between her labia. Rey squeaks and clenches her fists harder.

“Yeah, you make me feel good, even though you’re a fucking stalker. Stalked me online. I bet you came to my house too, didn’t you, you fucking freak.”

Ben’s chest rumbles behind her and he opens his mouth wide; it feels to Rey like he’s sucking her entire cunt into his mouth, and it’s amazing. She squeals and writhes and he growls again.

“_Fuck_, you _fucking animal_. You did, didn’t you. Looked in my window at night, while I changed into my nightie. Did you watch me masturbate? Using that tentacle dildo that Poe got me for Christmas? The one that always makes me-” 

Ben roars underneath her, tossing her over so she bounces onto the cot. She grabs the metal edge, catching herself before she can slide onto the cold tile floor.

“What the _fuck_, Ben?” Rey bellows, sitting up on her knees. “I was about to come! What is wrong with you?”

“I’m sorry! Shit, I’m so sorry!” Ben is yelling, too, his hands busy at the front of his jeans. “You taste so good, _god_ you’re perfect, I want to do it more but my jeans are so tight they hurt and I need to unzip them, please.” He seems to be torn between physical discomfort and general embarrassment as well as anger at disappointing Rey and she adores every bit of it. She takes a breath, smiles, and holds a hand out to steady his own.

“You could have just said so, Ben.” Her calm helps him to calm, and his hands still. She pats them. “That’s better. Now, unzip your pants like a good boy. I want to see your cock.”

“Oh ohhhh.” His face scrunches up again, but he does as she tells him and unzips his jeans, then tugs them down his hips, leaving his briefs up, tenting over what is obviously a sizable erection. Rey reaches towards it and Ben holds up his hands to block her.

“Please don’t,” he pleads, his eyes shining with unshed tears. “I don’t want you to see it.”

“But Ben, my sweet creep,” Rey murmurs, moving his hands aside and taking hold of the waistband of his briefs, “I want to see it.”

He fists his hands in the sheets, shuts his eyes again and turns his head, and Rey gently lifts the waistband above where Ben’s hard cock juts out from between his legs. She tugs the underwear down, careful to pull it down in the back, too, so it won’t accidentally snap up and hurt him. Once this is done, and he’s fully exposed, she sits back to take a good look. Now that she’s had a taste of his mouth on her cunt she isn’t too worried about getting distracted.

She examines Ben’s cock in silence, and after a moment Ben starts to whine. He seems to interpret her silence as disapproval.

“I’m sorry,” he whimpers. “I know it’s ugly, all purple and gross and-”

“Perfect.”

“What?” His eyes fly open in surprise. “What?”

“It’s beautiful, Ben. You’re a fucking creep but you have a gorgeous cock.”

Rey isn’t lying. She’s seen a fair number of cocks in her life - more than some people, not as many as others, but still, a decent number - and Ben’s is quite possibly the nicest. It’s big, to begin with, but not _too_ big, with a solid, thick shaft and a nice pronounced head on the end. It is, indeed, very purple, but that isn’t bad. That just means it’s full of blood, excited for Rey to be there. And that excites Rey, too. 

“Okay,” he says, swallowing and looking down, seeming surprised to see his own cock out on display. “Uh, do you want to, uh…” 

Rey has no idea what he’s thinking, but she doesn’t care. She knows what she wants.

“Do you still want to kiss me, Creepy Ben?”

“Oh yeah!” Ben gasps, as though he’d forgotten, and starts to sit up, his mouth already puckering up for a kiss. She pushes him down by his shoulder, not roughly, but hard enough to make him grunt and bounce against the thin mattress.

“Not yet, we’re not done with what we were doing. I’m gonna get back on your face. You still need to make me come - at least twice - before I’ll kiss you. Remember?”

“Oh, yeah!” Ben shouts it this time, and Rey squeals as he grasps her and pulls her cunt back down on his mouth.

He has some preternatural talent, or an excellent memory, or he prefers a kinesthetic learning style or _something_ because thirty seconds later Rey is clutching Ben’s hair and wailing and only a few minutes later she’s wailing again. She hadn’t even had an opportunity to insult him or call him _creepy_ between those two orgasms. He doesn’t stop, though, he’s going for a third, and Rey is just well enough in her own mind to make some more of that small talk. She finds that she really enjoys the small talk.

“Did you ever follow me to Poe’s, Creepy Ben?” Her voice sounds rough and strangely high to her, but he reacts with one of those animalistic snarls and sucks her into his mouth again, so it seems to be affecting him the way she wants it to. “You did, didn’t you.” She leans further down, staring into his eyes from where they peek up over the fuzz of her mons, between her thighs. “You disgusting stalker. Did you crouch by the trash in the alley and watch us fuck? It’s where you belong, in the alley, with the garbage. Did you watch me cry when I came, when he fucked me in the ass?”

Rey’s not exactly sure what happens next. One moment Ben’s hair is in her fists and his mouth is around her cunt and she’s on the hair’s edge of her third orgasm, taunting him about him being a _fucking creep_, how he watched her fuck her ex boyfriend through the window of his historic condo in the Garden District, and the next moment she’s on her back, breathless, her head at the foot of the cot, her knees spread wide. Ben is roaring, savage, his teeth on her neck and his body - his huge, hard, heavy and hot body - is on top of her. His hands are around her wrists and are holding them so tightly she’s afraid they might break, and somehow his cock - his gorgeous purple cock - finds its way between her legs. She’s sopping wet from the oral, it’s so slick down her thighs and over her ass, it could be an accident. But whether it’s an accident or not the head of his cock slips inside her opening and that’s when Ben completely loses control. He thrusts into her with a howl, holds it in for one silent moment - not nearly enough time for her body to adjust to the violation - and then roars again, and presses her into the mattress while he fucks her like a steam train with Casey Jones at the throttle.

By the time Rey realizes what exactly is happening, it’s over. Ben cries out one last time, accompanied by a rough thrust, and comes, pressing into her three more times in a reflection of what Rey guesses is three spurts of cum. Once he’s done he lets go of her wrists and wraps his arms around her back, rocking her gently from right to left in order to get his arms under her, around her torso. He tucks his knees up under her butt, surrounding her, and on instinct she wraps her legs up around his hips, her arms around his shoulders. She toys with the ends of his hair. He sighs, a heavy, solid kind of sound, and rubs his face into her neck. 

Rey stares at the ceiling, plays with Ben’s hair, inhales the scent of sex that permeates the room, and listens to Ben breathe. His breaths come slow and steady, now that he’s worn himself out. In and out, in and out, his chest pressing against Rey with each inhale. He’s so heavy and warm. It feels good, his body on hers. The room is a bit chilly and the dress she’s wearing is pretty but it doesn’t provide much coverage. Rey thinks about the orgasms she had, which were very good, and the fuck, which was not good. But it could be good. He could learn. They could try again.

She doesn’t know if she wants to try again. She glances over at the door, and considers the bathroom. Maybe she has to pee.

Ben hasn’t shown his face since he flipped them over. Rey wonders how his face looked, while he was fucking her. He’d sounded like a beast, and he’d felt like a beast, too. So unlike her sweet, creepy man. She wishes she could have seen his face.

She stops playing with his hair and unwraps her arms from his shoulders, and nudges him gently.

“Hey, Ben. Get up, I need to go pee.”

Ben grunts, pulls his arms out from around Rey, and holds himself up on his hands so he can look her in the face. Once his eyes meet hers it’s as though a spell has broken. He smiles, first, but then his face falls.

“Oh my god,” he murmurs, and scrambles off of her. “Oh shit. Oh,” he looks down at his own nakedness, his flaccid, shiny cock, and then at her; between her legs, where his cum leaks out of her opening. “I’m sorry. Oh god, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, I didn’t mean…” He reaches down to the floor where the blanket had fallen earlier, and throws it over her. She throws it back off while he pulls up his jeans.

“It’s not a big deal, Ben,” she insists, getting up and heading towards the door. “We fucked, it’s no big deal.”

She pushes the door open and glances back at him. He’s sitting on the edge of the cot and staring at the ground. The cot is so short his knees are up in front of his chest when his feet are on the floor. He hadn’t taken off his boots before they got in bed, and his feet are turned sideways, leaning against each other, like a child’s feet. His hair is a mess and there are tears on his cheeks and his pink lips are swollen and Rey realizes that she still hasn’t kissed him. She considers stepping back into the room, getting to her knees and cradling his face in her hands, wiping off his tears and kissing his lips like she’d promised, telling him that everything will be okay. But she doesn’t do that. Instead she turns around and walks to the bathroom, and when the bedroom door closes behind her she tries very hard not to flinch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do people still know who Casey Jones is? He was a famous railroad engineer, [drove a train fast and then he crashed it and died](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casey_Jones). There's a [traditional ballad about his heroics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ballad_of_Casey_Jones) (he stayed on the train to try to keep it from crashing instead of jumping) - [here's a version by Johnny Cash](https://youtu.be/03jwHrO7ubI). And here's Mississippi John Hurt singing [Casey Jones Blues](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfG3s10mfxE), The North Mississippi Allstars singing a different version of the Blues they call [K.C. Jones (On The Road Again)](https://youtu.be/0JHWM1SZ7rM). [The Grateful Dead](https://youtu.be/_x2m6i4KFqg) wrote a song about Casey Jones, too.


	5. Chapter 5

Dissolve.

Rey wakes up to the bunker shaking.

It's her fourth long sleep - five if you count the nap on the bathroom floor. Life in the bunker had started to feel regular - normal, even - but the room is shaking now, accompanied by a noise so deep the undertones make her grimace, and that isn't normal. Ben clamors through the door to her room just as the movement ceases. His eyes are wide and wild, mouth open, breathing heavily.

"Are you okay?" His voice is strangled, quiet. He's clearly terrified.

Rey nods and curls her knees up to under her chin. She hasn't spoken a word to Ben since… since she left him alone in her room the other day. There are many things she wants to say but the words aren't there and she's stuck there with him so she should talk but she doesn't know how. She’s glad her silence hasn’t made him stop speaking to her, even if he doesn’t talk as much as he did before.

Ben stares at her with those golden brown eyes - not yet encircled by the eyeliner he insists on wearing and which she will never admit she likes. He fills the entire door - wearing black, again, he only ever wears black - and his palms rest on either edge of the doorframe. His fingers twitch, and maybe he wants to say something else but instead he walks back out, the door swinging shut behind him and closing with a _clang_.

She waits, and a minute later he returns, another dress and a pair of underwear - plain white cotton, always plain white cotton - in his hand. He's brought her a new dress every day, pretty sundresses decorated with flowers. She's seen him wash them, in the small washer/dryer that’s nestled under the counter in the corner of the kitchen, but so far she hasn't worn any of them a second time. The one he brings today is particularly attractive to Rey. It's red, a deep crimson, with large white and yellow sunflowers splotched on the fabric like splashes of paint. They look like something out of a Van Gogh painting, and she releases a quiet _ooooo_ as she reaches out for it.

"I thought you'd like it," Ben says with a shy smile. Then he's gone.

He'll make breakfast while Rey will strip out of her nightdress - he had kindly provided her with flannel, warm against the chill of the air, very modest - and masturbate before she dresses. She masturbates a lot - in the morning; before sleep; when she showers; or just randomly during the day as the spirit moves her. The day before she'd had to excuse herself when they were playing Yahtzee and Ben had held the pencil in his teeth while figuring out how to score his dice. His teeth gripped the pencil, luscious lips spreading to make space, and just like that she was perched on the bathroom sink, her left hand knuckles-deep in her cunt while she mauled her clit with her right hand.

When she came back ten minutes later Ben was washing his hands at the kitchen sink and the laptop was on the counter, and they went right back to rolling dice out of a cup as though nothing had happened.

After breakfast they sometimes read or play games - she always agrees to play games when he asks, although she couldn't tell you why - but options for both are limited. Ben's Grandpa was a fan of Reader's Digest, National Geographic, and Time-Life books (all of which Rey had heard of but never seen herself) and his collection appears to her unschooled eyes to be complete. So there's plenty to read, but Rey doesn't find it of much interest. She prefers to spend her time in the green room, with her flowers. She talks to the flowers and she doesn't have to worry about what they might say back. Today, after breakfast, she sits alone in the green room.

Some hours after breakfast Ben comes in and putters around, picking some veggies here, clipping herbs there. Rey isn't paying much attention to him, to his socked feet that scuff softly across the concrete floor, or how his hands tenderly test the tomatoes before plucking the best ones, or how his lips move as he sings quietly to himself. He leaves - if he glances at her on his way out the door she doesn’t see it, her attention being taken totally by her flowers - and twenty minutes later he calls her out to the kitchen for lunch.

Lunch is_ pasta con pomodoro e basilico_, and it smells amazing. Rey sits in the chair across from Ben, who gives her a hopeful smile as he pours water from the pitcher into her glass.

“I know it’s your favorite,” he admits, picking up his fork and poking at the penne, mixing in the thick red sauce and parmesan he’s grated on top. It’s real cheese, she can tell from the shape of the shreds, and as though reading her mind Ben confirms it. “I have blocks and blocks of cheese in the fridge back in the green room. I know how much you like cheese. I hope you like the pasta, it’s the recipe you posted back in August. I planted extra tomatoes and basil and laid up garlic, just so I could make it for you.”

She nods her head and stirs her own penne, but she still doesn’t speak. There are things she could say; she could say _thank you_, or _it smells amazing_, or _I can’t believe you saved a recipe I posted online almost a year ago, _or_ what kind of fucking person **are you**._ But she doesn’t say any of these things. She eats her pasta - it is delicious - and sips her water, and when she’s done she takes her plate to the sink and then goes to the bathroom and masturbates on the toilet. Once she’s had her orgasm and wiped the tears off her face she walks past Ben - washing his hands in the kitchen - and returns to the green room, where she tells the flowers all the things she can’t tell him.

Some undetermined time later Ben comes to her and asks if she wants to play a game with him in the living room. He claims the sofa - the laptop on the cushion next to him on the left, to make room on the coffee table - and Rey takes the armchair to his right. Today it’s not a game, it’s a puzzle - a 1000 piece puzzle featuring a painting of a litter of kittens spilling out of a wicker basket set on a table in front of a window, outside of which appears to be a farmyard complete with fences and cows and maybe a dog. It’s hard to tell exactly - it’s not a very good painting. But Rey loves puzzles, and this will take up time, so once Ben dumps the pieces into the middle of the table she silently begins the process of separating out the edge pieces from the center ones, while Ben takes the center pieces and divides them up by color.

The work is precise and absorbing, so it takes her a moment to realize that Ben has stood up and is making his way towards the bathroom. Rey watches him, holding her breath, and he doesn’t look back as he steps through the door and closes it behind him. She releases her breath and slips into the seat he’s just vacated - the cushion is warm against her backside, having absorbed his body heat and now giving it back to her like some strange gift. The laptop sits, innocently, and Rey doesn’t take time to think before turning it around and opening it.

Rey has only seen the laptop screen once, when Ben showed her the software for the system that controls the workings of the bunker, but she is certain that’s not all that is on that machine. In fact, she can make some guesses about what else is on it, but until now she hasn’t had the opportunity to check. Ben keeps the laptop close to him, always, and rarely opens it in her presence. Rey is certain this is the first time he’s left it unattended with her in the room. Rey listens for sounds in the bathroom as the screen lights up and the desktop pops into view - no password, convenient - but the room is utterly silent. That’s okay - if Rey’s right, she’ll know very soon what Ben is up to in there.

She examines the icons - there are only a handful - and clicks the most promising one. It opens up a screen showing a window with a few dropdown menus across the top. She clicks the menu labeled "camera" and is unsurprised to find the software defaults still in place: camera1, camera2, camera3, camera4. The current selection is camera3 and the view in the window, although grey and grainy, is instantly recognizable: the armchair with the table where they share their meals, the coffee table covered with puzzle pieces, and the sofa with her on it. There are options for moving the camera but she doesn’t dare. She does, however, raise her right hand, and her stomach flips as the Rey sitting on the sofa in the window raises her right hand, too. She quickly flips through the other cameras. Camera1 is her bedroom, camera2 is the green room (focused on her flower garden in the back corner), and camera4 is the bathroom. She presses her thighs together and shifts sideways on the cushion before giving her full attention to the window showing the live feed coming from the bathroom.

Ben is standing, staring at the mirror over the sink. The camera appears to be in the corner across from the shower so she can see the shower itself, the toilet, Ben's back, and part of the mirror. She can see part of his face in the reflection. His eyes are wide, terrified, and his lips are moving. There doesn't seem to be sound coming through the speakers so she doesn't know if he is speaking or not.

She can't help but admire the positioning of the camera; it was well-considered to capture as much of the room as possible without the camera having to move, which she supposed would draw attention to it. She has, we know now, suspected there were cameras placed about the bunker, but she can’t very well search for them if she could be being watched at any point. Besides, there is a part of Rey - a dirty, dark part - that likes it. Thinking about Ben watching her always makes her abdomen sore and her pussy drip and her nipples hard and then she masturbates and comes on her fingers thinking about Ben masturbating while he watches her on his goddamned laptop.

Ben is not masturbating now, but that does nothing to cool Rey's ardor. She slips her fingers under the waistband of her underwear - that practical, comfortable white cotton underwear that Ben provides her with - and circles her clit as she watches him stand stock still, staring at himself in the bathroom mirror. From this angle she can admire his back, how his shoulders fill out his stupid black tee shirt, how his legs - so thick, and strong like tree trunks - are just slightly bowed. Rey finds this endearing and also hot, and as she thinks about how his mouth felt on her cunt she moves her fingers to address her clit directly. She wants to drag it out but also knows he could walk out at any moment with little warning, so instead she works quickly and has an unsatisfying orgasm that barely scratches her itch. But good thing, because Ben is turning on the water now and he's going to wash his face and her hands smell like her cunt so she needs to wash, too. She slams the laptop closed and turns it in the direction she is pretty sure it was in when Ben went to the bathroom. As she stands up she realizes that she could have spent that time examining the door to the outside, or checking if the computer has any kind of connection to the outside world. She still isn’t convinced that Ben isn’t lying to her about the fallout, and yet all she can think about is him, and her, and how they can live together in this bunker.

When he comes out of the bathroom a minute later, Rey is drying her hands on a towel in the kitchen. He says nothing, only sits back down in his place on the sofa and returns to dividing up the puzzle pieces, and she joins him.

"I don't blame you. For not speaking to me."

Rey doesn't pause or look up, and neither does Ben, but he doesn't wait for any kind of confirmation before rushing on.

"It was a mistake, and I'm sorry. I should have said no when you asked me to-"

"Ben."

She glances up. He looks sad, so sad, but he shakes his head.

"It shouldn't have been like that, our first time. Maybe it is creepy but I wanted it to be nice and it _wasn't_ and I lost control and I'm just so sorry, I've fucked this whole thing up from the start, I-"

"I thought you were gonna rape me."

Ben's head snaps up, face twisted and very pale.

"But I did, Rey. I did, and I didn't _want_ to. I didn't mean to."

"No, I mean," Rey examines the edge piece in her hand and one on the table and somehow notices that they fit, so she snaps them together and pushes them aside. "I mean when I found out you kidnapped me, that you've been stalking me, I assumed you did it for sex."

"I never really thought about it," he mumbles, shifting the pieces around with his fingertips. "I mean I know what sex _is_, I read some, like guidebooks, but I’ve never watched porn or anything. I never even watched you, if you started stuff I would look away, I didn’t look until, uh…" He blushes, a deep crimson, and curls over. Perhaps he was going to say something like _I didn’t look until you were here and I could watch you on my laptop whenever I wanted_, but she can't be entirely sure.

She's probably thinking about what a strange conversation this is, and where it might be going.

"You didn't rape me, Ben. And I'm not angry."

"Okay," he says, sounding like he doesn't quite believe her. "Okay. Thank you for saying that."

There are two more matching edge pieces, and Rey presses them together too. She's pleased to see that Ben has found a matching pair, too.

"I just want to hold your hand," he says quietly after a few more minutes of matching and snapping together puzzle pieces. "Maybe smell your hair. I wanna make you food, so you can feel safe. I want to understand you."

"Nobody has ever understood me. Not really," Rey says as she continues to examine the edge pieces looking for matches. "I have always felt so alone."

"You're not alone," he whispers, and she glances up to find him staring at her, his honey-colored, black-rimmed eyes brimming with tears.

"Neither are you," she answers, and she reaches out her right hand towards him. He stares at it for a moment as though he doesn't recognize it for what it is, but then he slowly, tentatively, reaches his own hand out and takes hers in his.

There isn’t time to appreciate the moment, because the bunker shakes again - maybe even harder, this time - and Rey has to let go of Ben’s hand so she can cover up her ears. It’s deafeningly loud, and the undertone is so low it hurts her teeth and it doesn’t even matter that her ears are covered because she can feel it, deep in her bones. Luckily it doesn’t last long, just a few seconds, and they’re left sitting in a shifting silence. They sit quietly for a moment, puzzle pieces having spilled off the edge of the coffee table and onto the floor, the spell broken.

Together they pick up the wandering puzzle pieces and work to fit them together until it’s time for Ben to cook dinner.

* * *

The next couple of days are better - more comfortable. Rey still isn’t sure what she should say, so she stays pretty quiet, though she lingers near Ben. She’s curious to see what it’s like, being near him. Nothing particularly intense; she’s not climbing in his lap or anything. But like, instead of sitting in the armchair she sits next to him on the sofa. The first time she does it she keeps a few inches between them - he’s still working on that stupid kitten puzzle, she’s reading an article from an old issue of National Geographic. They are inches apart but she can feel his body heat on her hip and thigh despite the distance.

“These ladies from New York City went up to the Hudson Valley and started a goat farm.”

Ben glances over at her. These are the first words she’s spoken to him in a day.

“Oh yeah? Goats?”

“Yeah. Goats, in an old dairy farm.”

He gives her a crooked smile that dares her to smile back. She does.

“Why goats and not cows?”

“I dunno. Haven’t gotten to that part yet I guess.”

He gazes at her for a moment, blushing while his eyes flit over her face, and then he returns to the puzzle.

A little bit later she shifts around in an attempt to get more comfortable, and the bottoms of her bare feet end up pressed against his thigh. Her feet are cold and he’s warm, so she pushes playfully. He growls in reply, then grabs her by the ankles and pulls her feet into his lap, and she screeches a laugh as her butt slides across the cushions and her head lands on the armrest. Her skirt had hiked up when he dragged her; he tugs it back down to cover her thighs, then spends 20 minutes rubbing her feet and staring into her eyes; the pressure of his thumbs against the bottoms of her feet and toes is better than some sex she’s had.

When he’s done she wobbles to the bathroom, pulls off her underwear, props herself up on the sink, and masturbates luxuriously, staring into the tiny hole in the wall across from the shower that she now knows the camera is hidden behind. When she’s done she pees, washes her hands, and puts her undies back on. She comes back out to find Ben drying his hands in the kitchen, his laptop discarded on the armchair. She sits on the sofa and he joins her; thirty minutes later she’s asleep with her head on his shoulder.

It had been a good experiment.

The next morning she stays in bed late, waiting until the warm scent of coffee reaches her room, and perhaps she can even hear Ben moving about in the living room. She stares up into the corner of the room - she can’t see the hole in the wall here, but she remembers the angle and positioning of the camera from the quick glance she had on the laptop the other day. She raises herself to her knees and lifts the nightgown over her head and off. She doesn’t wear underwear to bed, so once she tosses the flannel garment to the ground she’s completely naked. She stretches, first raising her hands up over her head, which causes her breasts to lift up and her stomach to stretch taut. Then she leans forward, pushing her hips back to her heels and reaching her hands towards the end of the bed. She wiggles first one way and then the other, stretching her hips and lats. When she’s feeling loose she falls back, head on her pillow, and opens her legs wide. She takes her time, stroking her labia and teasing her hole for a few minutes before pressing three fingers in and giving gentle but steady attention to her clit. It takes a while for her to come; she’s teasing herself, taking her time to enjoy the ride. Her orgasm is accompanied by an unexpected flow of tears, which would normally embarrass her but she expects that Ben - if he’s even watching - won’t hold that against her.

She has to take a moment to pull herself together before putting her nightgown back on and going out to find Ben. He’s walking from the kitchen into the living room, where a large, thin book with a black binding rests on the sofa cushion - Rey immediately identifies it as one of the Time Life books from the “Mysteries of the Unknown” collection - their current favorite - and he picks it up and holds it so she can see the cover.

“_Cosmic Connections_,” she reads, eyebrows raised.

“Ancient astronomy. Probably bullshit.” He lowers himself to sitting and takes a sip from the mug of coffee that was resting on the now complete kitten puzzle that covers most of the coffee table.

Rey helps herself to the coffee, toast and bacon that Ben left out for her in the kitchen. The laptop is sitting on the counter, and she eyes the back of Ben's head before opening it, as quietly as she can. The camera program is open, and is set to camera1 - her bedroom. Rey smiles to herself and closes the computer before taking the clean dress and underwear - folded and waiting for her on the edge of the counter - and going back to her room to change.

* * *

The next morning Rey wakes up early and stands with Ben in the kitchen while he cooks breakfast; even helps by breaking the eggs he uses to make their omelettes. After breakfast they sit on opposite ends of the sofa, facing each other, feet together, and stare at each other, not speaking. The pattern of his moles, the way his hair - out of a ponytail today - falls when he pushes it back from his forehead, his _hands_, she memorizes it all, categorizing it all in her brain in terms of color and size, pattern and texture.

She can smell him, too. He smells good - always has, he even smelled good back when he was just creepy gas station guy - like his hair products, and laundry soap, and underneath that some kind of musk that is all his own. The one time she had the opportunity she hadn’t gotten close enough to his cock to catch its scent, and now she’s wondering if that’s what she’s smelling, Ben’s skin in his most private places, between his legs and under his arms and behind his ears.

After lunch - canned soup, not exciting - Rey retreats to the green room, to her garden. She has enjoyed being close to Ben, and it confuses her. She wants to be close to him. She likes his voice, and his jokes (which are spare and dry but which always make her smile). She likes his hands, and his hair, and the way his body moves under his clothes. She likes his cooking and she likes playing games with him, and she likes masturbating and imagining him watching her. She likes how his mouth felt against her cunt, and she likes the warmth that bleeds out of him and into her. She is thinking thoughts that she isn’t sure she wants to think, so instead of sitting next to him on the sofa she takes some books with her and sits on the cold, hard floor and reads to the flowers.

Hours later Rey’s stomach growls, and like magic Ben is there, pushing open the door with his back and turning around to reveal his arms laden. He grins at her and sets the burden down - a pitcher of water in one hand, and two glasses, two plates, knives and forks, a loaf of white bread fresh from the breadmaker, and a small jar of homemade fig jam (Ben had made it himself the previous summer, dozens of jars of it are on the shelves that line the hallway leading to her room, and it is delicious), all balanced on a thick woolen blanket, folded. He bids Rey to stand, and she does, her white linen dress spattered with red tea roses falling barely to her knees, and after he unfolds and spreads the blanket out on the floor she sits right back down. The woolen fabric scratches against her bare legs and makes them itch, but Ben brings out cheese from the fridge by the door and slices some bread for her, and once he’s fed her a few bites of bread and cheese and jam the blanket doesn’t bother her so much.

“Ben,” Rey says. She’s eaten her fill, and she’s lying on her side, head pillowed on her right arm. She’s using the fingers of her left hand to pick at the pills that have formed on the blanket over the years. Ben’s still eating, but he’s slowed down and this might be his last bite.

“Hm?” He’s chewing, but he’s listening.

“You never kissed me.”

His jaw slows - still chewing, but now it’s thoughtful, and he chews some more and swallows and then takes a sip of water, and then another, all the while gazing down at her with an expression that she can’t read. It makes her uncomfortable, and she’s wondering if she somehow said something wrong. Maybe he’s changed his mind after all. Maybe the physical closeness she’s been experimenting with has convinced him that he doesn’t like her after all. Maybe he hasn’t been watching her through the cameras, or maybe he has and he’s decided he doesn’t like what he sees. Maybe he doesn’t want her, and now she’s gone and made a fool of herself and she’s still fucking _stuck_ with him, and she doesn’t think she could take that. Suddenly her eyesight blurs and the scratchy, itchy blanket is digging into her hands and she’s having trouble breathing, she’s going to die because she _just can’t breathe_, but just as suddenly Ben is there - her Ben, her creepy fucking stalker Ben with the eyeliner - and he’s holding her and stroking her hair. He says it’s okay and she believes him. She does.

They lie together on that stupid scratchy blanket for what feels like hours. Rey takes advantage of the nearness to touch Ben - his face, his arms, his chest and torso through his shirt - she can't get enough of how his skin and muscles feel under her fingertips, under her palms. He doesn't touch her in return, keeps his hands folded between them, but he stares at her, watches her face; he may as well have his fingers in her cunt for the way it makes her feel.

"Is it true?" Rey asks, her finger tracing down Ben's nose for at least the fourth time. "Was there really some kind of attack? Or did you make that up as an excuse to kidnap me?"

His brows draw together: Rey tuts and smooths out the wrinkle with her thumb.

The tone of his reply is hurt and not at all angry. "Of course it's true, I wouldn't-"

"Shhh," Rey says, putting her finger over his lips. "It's okay."

"I am glad it happened," he admits with a touch of desperation in his voice. "I'm glad I get to be with you."

"You know, me too."

"Really?"

"I can definitely think of worse people to be stuck with."

The corners of his mouth turn up into a mischievous grin.

"Like Poe?"

Rey laughs so hard she chokes. After she calms down and wipes the tears off her face she looks back up at Ben. He is awfully close, and his lips look nice. Pink and soft. Tempting. Rey presses her fingers into his hair and pulls him down for a kiss.

But she doesn't have a chance to enjoy it or even to gauge his reaction, because three seconds after their lips touch they are interrupted by a series of loud metallic bangs coming from far above, from the surface.

Somebody is knocking on the door to the bunker.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The reading options in this chapter have me feeling nostalgic.
> 
> [Rey's issue of National Geographic is from May 1954](https://www.amazon.com/National-Geographic-Magazine-1954-Vol/dp/B001HBXBN4)
> 
> My parents had many sets of Time-Life Books, although I don't remember _Cosmic Connections_. [You can buy it on Amazon if you'd like](https://www.amazon.com/Cosmic-Connections-Mysteries-Time-Life-Books/dp/0809463407) (it's from December, 1988)
> 
> Who do you think could be knocking at the door, and why? One more week and then you'll find out!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the end. A very horny end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Extreme close-up. Ben's hands are shaking as he unlocks and opens the heavy door that leads to the tunnel, the knocking from above steady and much louder once they enter the tunnel. The door clangs shut behind them, and the knocking pauses and then slows, although it doesn't cease completely. Rey follows Ben up the ladder even though he tells her not to. He doesn't seem to mind, though, not really. He's terrified and so is she but she feels less terrified being close to him. She’s hoping he feels the same way about her.

Ben climbs faster than Rey and reaches the top several seconds before she does. By the time she scrambles up she can hear him swearing quietly, and she can see past him through the small window in the door. She's shocked by the ray of clear sunshine that passes through it and illuminates Ben's face; she has to squint. She feels as though she hasn't seen the sun forever; and she has no idea what time it really is, although the angle of the sun implies it's late afternoon.

There's a man outside the door, and he's yelling. His back is to the door, but Rey can see him as he turns his head and shouts over his shoulder.

"Come on, Ben, let me in! I need to talk to you!"

"We can talk through the door," Ben replies loudly, even though he's reached out and wrapped his hand around the top lock of the three that hold the door secure. Rey steps up beside him and grasps the other two locks. The man glances at her and a look of disbelief, and maybe a little fear, flits across his face, and he turns so he stands sideways to the door. He's handsome, she can't help but notice, a few years younger than Kylo and older than her, with dark skin that glistens with sweat, and his hair is cut very close to his scalp. He's not as tall as Ben but he's built like he could have played football in high school or even in college. He's wearing fatigues, and carries what appears to be a semi-automatic rifle in his hands. Maybe armed forces instead of football. Maybe both. 

There's a full-sized van behind him, and behind that Rey can see the edge of the tall grass that borders the dirt parking area. She wonders in which direction the gas station lies.

"Who are you?" He asks.

"I'm Rey," she replies, before Ben can answer for her. "Who are you?"

He glances to Ben, then back to her. "I'm Finn, I'm friends with this asshole. Tell him to let me in."

Ben grumbles something about them being more like acquaintances than friends, and Rey ignores him.

"What about the fallout?"

The man looks around uncomfortably. "Fallout's passed, air's clean. There's people, other survivors, gathering in Houston to fight. I figured Ben was down here, stopped by to pick him up before I go. You should come too, you look like a brawler." He pauses his glancing to give her a crooked smile, and Ben swears again.

Just as the corner of Finn's mouth quirks up, Rey catches movement in the grass out of the corner of her eye. There's something there, and at first she thinks it's a cat, and then she thinks it's a spider, but it's much too large to be either of those things, and it also has tentacles, which neither of those things has, and it's entirely the wrong color although she couldn't tell you what color it is, either.

The thing is fast. Rey wrenches the locks and screams at Ben to open the door, but Finn turns towards the thing and there's a deafening series of bangs and in seconds it lies twitching on the ground only feet from Finn's combat boots, bleeding out something that resembles motor oil, dark with a rainbow sheen.

Together, Ben and Rey fling the door open, and Rey gets a moment's taste of fresh air and sunlight - even with the stench of the dead thing it's wonderful - before Finn clamors in and Rey locks the door behind him, her ears still ringing from the gunshots. Ben looks unhappy as he starts down the ladder without a word. Rey goes next - she doesn't want some strange man looking up her dress - and Finn comes last, rifle flung across his back.

When they reach the bunker Ben insists that Finn leave his rifle at the bottom of the tunnel, which the other man does without complaint, leaning it, butt down, against the concrete wall. Finn follows the other two in and takes a seat in the armchair. Rey sits on the sofa, as far away from him as she can, and Ben putters in the kitchen. Finn doesn't hide his curiosity as he glances around, brown eyes keen, taking everything in. 

"So how do you know Ben?" Rey asks. Perhaps she knows that Finn wants to ask that question of her, too, so she's getting her leg up, so to speak.

"He went to high school with my sister," Finn says, looking at her intently. "She's older than me, and he was older than her, but I knew who he was." He says it like it means something beyond what he says, and Rey wonders what he's getting at but chooses to ignore it. "Then later on we had a couple of community college courses together."

"Ben!" Rey cries as he walks over with three mugs on a tray. "You didn't tell me you went to college."

"Just a couple community college classes," he mumbles, gesturing for Rey to choose a mug, which she does. Finn selects next and Ben takes the last one. It's chamomile tea with a bit of honey, and Rey closes her eyes as she inhales the scent.

"Nothing as impressive as what you're doing. Finn, Rey's finishing up her master's in materials engineering up at LSU." He sounds proud of her, and Rey scoots closer and places her hand on his knee.

"Aw, thanks baby," she coos, enjoying how the tips of his ears glow red along with the rest of his face.

Finn stares at them, his tea untouched.

"So how did you guys meet?"

"We met at the gas station," she answers, then takes a sip from her mug.

Ben puts his arm around her shoulders. "Yeah, you know, we'd talk when she would come in sometimes."

"We were friendly," Rey continues, leaning into him, "and then I happened to be getting gas when the emergency alert came on."

Ben's fingers stroke Rey's arm just above her elbow, and it tickles a little and makes her squirm. She looks up at him, and he is looking right back at her.

"I told her about the bunker,"

"I followed him down."

Ben swallows. Rey runs her hand higher up his thigh and squeezes gently.

"I was very, very lucky to find Ben."

Ben's eyes are fathomless and beautiful. "And I was lucky to find you."

Their lips are just about to touch again when someone clears their throat. It's Finn, still sitting in the arm chair, mug of tea abandoned on the floor.

"That's cool," he says, although his expression and body language imply that it isn't very cool at all, that he is, in fact, very uncomfortable indeed. Rey doesn't care and she isn't sure if Ben notices at all. She can see from the corner of her eye that he is still looking down at her. She gives Finn a smile and noisily slurps her tea.

"So what was that thing out there, anyway?" She asks once her mug is empty. "We've been pretty closed off here. And you mentioned something about Houston?"

Finn sets down the book he was flipping through - the same _Cosmic Connections_ Ben had been reading the day before - and leans forward, elbows on his knees.

"So there was an invasion, right? Aliens - we just call them aliens. There was some kind of chemical attack too, but whether the aliens brought the chemicals or the government was attempting to use the chemicals to fight the aliens is uncertain. But it cleared two, three days ago and people who survived started coming out."

Rey and Ben had both set their mugs on the coffee table and are gripping each other tightly.

"But they're still here."

"Yeah," Finn nodded, "lots of 'em, with weird ships and shit. Biomech, if you know what that means."

They both nod. Rey is trembling, but so is Ben and that makes her feel better.

"According to the radio there's a group gathering in Houston, people with medical or battle experience. So I got my fatigues and emptied out my gun cabinet and I'm heading there, gonna fight, kill those alien motherfuckers or send them back to wherever they came from."

"Jesus," Rey murmurs. Finn, leaning forward, hands clasped over his knees, is intense.

"Anyway, Ben doesn't have that experience but he's a big guy, and he's alone - or I thought he was alone - and I figured he would be down here, so I stopped by to see if he'd come with me." He looks back and forth between them. "You could both come with me; it's a big van, and I can teach you to shoot. Although," he adds, eyeing Rey, "you might want to change into something more appropriate."

Rey senses Ben bristling next to her. She squeezes his thigh again and he calms. She thinks it was subtle, but one glance at Finn and she can tell he saw exactly what she did. She offers him a warm smile.

"Benny and I need to talk about it. We've been planning to stay here for the foreseeable future and going to Houston to fight so suddenly is pretty … well it's a lot to consider. You understand?"

"Yes, ma'am, I do understand," Finn replies, and looks at his watch. "Under normal circumstances Houston would be a four-hour drive, but I expect it to take twice as long at least. We can wait until the morning. It's almost six pm. Is twelve hours enough time to think about it? Then if you decide to come we can take another hour to pack, and if you don't, I can just leave."

He looks at them expectantly. Ben squeezes Rey's shoulder.

"Twelve hours is fine," he says, and stands up. Rey grabs his hand and he helps her up.

"We need to start talking," she says. "Finn, there's another bedroom through the storage area there, you'll be more comfortable there than out here. Help yourself to anything in the kitchen."

Rey steps around the coffee table and Ben gathers the mugs. She heads towards the door to Ben's bedroom - the only door in the bunker that she has not yet been through. 

"I'll meet you in the bedroom in a minute, baby," she calls over her shoulder. Ben, at the kitchen sink, doesn't respond, but she catches a glimpse of Finn, standing in front of the arm chair and frowning at her. She grins, wiggles her fingers at him, and walks through the door.

* * *

When Ben comes in a minute later with the laptop tucked under his arm, Rey is still standing, frozen. He has to press himself against the wall to scoot around her to get the door closed. He sets the laptop down on a weight bench, which sits next to what appears to be a complete set of free weights. Next to that is a small desk, clear except for a laser printer and a roll of tape. Reams of paper and boxes of tape and ink cartridges are stacked under the desk.

The wall, which continues to hold Rey’s attention, is papered with printouts of photos and multimedia posts and with watercolor paintings, in some places - there one spot in the far corner in particular - appearing to be several layers deep. The ceiling is in the same condition, and even a part of the floor.

"Oh my God," Rey murmurs. Ben stands next to her, shifting from foot to foot. "Oh my God. It's beautiful. It's _me_."

Ben ceases his rocking and says, "Yeah, it's all you." The tone of his voice is proud, with just a hint of fear.

Rey steps over to the wall and takes the corner of one of the watercolors between her fingers. It's of her, from the waist up. She's sitting at her favorite outdoor cafe in New Orleans, wearing a white sundress dotted with blossoms the color of the sky in high summer, and her head is thrown back in a laugh. The technique is meticulous, the colors exquisite.

"Tell me about this one," she demands.

"June thirteenth," he says quickly, "last year. The first time I followed you to New Orleans. You and Poe had a fight but you made up and he took you out to breakfast in the morning. It was hot out but you looked so beautiful."

Rey looks up at him; he is staring at the painting with an expression of absolute longing on his face.

"I remember that day," she says. "That was a terrible fight. It was the first time I thought about breaking up with him. You were there?"

He nods. "In the alley, with the garbage, and then at the restaurant I was across the street." 

"You painted this from life?"

"I always paint you from life."

She turns to face him fully, fist on her hip. "Why haven't you painted me since we've been here?"

He wrenches his eyes from the painting to glance down at her. There is a ghost of a smile playing on his lips. "Because," he whispers, "I thought you would think it was creepy."

She smacks his arm and he laughs, a beautiful sound, deep and dark, and she wraps her arms around his torso.

"I love that you're creepy," she admits into his broad chest. "I love how much you want me. Now, tell me more about all this."

Ben tells her all about it. How he'd started printing her posts and photos as soon as he'd found her accounts, and how he'd started hanging them up down in the bunker instead of in his apartment in town because he was afraid of his landlord finding them. He explains the organization - roughly temporal, and she can see her changing moods and interests along with the shifting of the seasons through the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of pieces of paper Ben had meticulously tacked and taped over the walls.

The most recent printouts - from the time that they have been together in the bunker - are just above the head of the bed, which is just a square mattress dressed with black sheets and blankets on a pallet, but there's a bloom of heat between Rey's legs anyway as she crawls over it to get a better view.

These are printouts from the cameras. They are grey and grainy but definitely her; reading on the sofa, drinking tea at the table, lying on the bed, and many close-ups of her face: eyes closed, head back, mouth open. In a few of them her eyes are open and she's biting her lower lip. It's a face familiar to her from the mirror, and from photos that Poe would take and then show to her later. A few of them have been touched up with watercolor, adding a bit of pink to her cheeks, making her lips rosy.

Ben's voice comes from close to her right ear, his breath is warm against her shoulder.

"I like the face you make when you come," he whispers, as though he's admitting a great secret. "It just… it looks like you feel so good, and I like thinking about you feeling good."

"I like to feel good," Rey admits. "I feel good right now. Being close to you."

Ben places his hands on her shoulders and squeezes. It's just a little hard, and she flinches, but she likes it.

"What do you want, Ben?"

He buries his nose in the hair at the base of her neck and inhales deeply, as though he is sniffing a glass of fine wine.

"I want to watch you. Watch you touch yourself. Please."

She turns around under his hands and presses a kiss to his cheek. "I can do that. Do you want to help? You could put your fingers in-"

"Oh, no," he says, shuffling backwards and pressing his palms against the front of his jeans. His eyes are wide and very dark, his cheeks burning red. "I mean, yes, soon, but first just watch. Please?"

Ben situates himself at the head of the bed, propping a pillow against the printout-papered wall and leaning against it, legs akimbo and hands resting in his lap. Rey starts to pull the dress over her head, but Ben stops her.

"I don't wanna see the," he gestures towards her knees. "Leave it on."

She does. She pulls her underwear down and off, being careful not to flash too much as she does so. Then, sitting up on her knees, she reaches her right hand under the skirt and begins to slowly circle her fingers around her clit.

Ben watches her face intently. His eyes never waver although they do flit - from her eyes to her lips to her neck and back again. He’s making her feel naked even though she's not, and that’s turning her on, making her hot. Ben is hot, too, pressing his palm against the front of his jeans again and writhing uncomfortably.

"Take it out, Ben," Rey demands. "I want to see your cock while I come. I want to think about all the things I want to do to it."

Ben looks like he's about to die, he has to close his eyes for a moment, but once he's back in control he violently fumbles his way out of his jeans and briefs and he's back leaning against the wall, wearing nothing but a black tee shirt and his ubiquitous eyeliner.

"Look at you," Rey croons as she dips her fingers in and slides the moisture slowly up to her clit. "Watching me touch myself with your pretty cock in your hand."

She pauses to gauge his response; he moans and boggles at her. 

"Fucking stalker. I bet you never thought in your wildest dreams that you would be here with me, like this."

"Watching you come," he chokes out, fist gripping his shaft like a vice, his eyes boring into hers.

"That's right," she says, dipping her fingers in just a bit more deeply, teasing herself before she circles her clit again. "You're gonna watch me make myself come while I'm thinking about how good your cock is gonna feel inside me."

He whines, gripping the base of his cock in his left hand and squeezing his head with the right. A bead of precum oozes from his slit and Rey licks her lips and presses the fingers of her left hand deeper, and keeps them there.

"I wanna suck you off," she continues, "get you all the way in the back of my throat. I want you to hold my head so I can't move, so I choke on you."

Ben is stroking himself now, he spat into his palm and mixed it with the precum and he's thrusting into his fist, lifting his hips off the bed and grunting softly with each lift, picking up more drops of slick each time. It would look dry and uncomfortable to anyone who happened to be watching, but the expression on his face, the way he's glaring at her almost angrily, implies that he doesn't notice or he doesn't care. 

"You'll shoot your load in the back of my throat," she whines, thrusting her own hips in time with his hand. "Drown me in your cum. I'll cry and I won't be able to breathe but you'll keep me there because you know I'll love it and it'll feel _so fucking good_."

"Fuck," he grunts. "Fuck, m'gonna come. _Ungh_."

He's gritting his teeth and the head of his cock is so purple and swollen, Rey thinks about how it would feel pressing in her cunt, rubbing against her g-spot, and just like that she's over the edge. Her eyes are closed and her head's back and she is _distressed_, because she can hear that Ben is having an orgasm too, he's crying and grunting and she might hear the sound of his cum splattering his skin but maybe she just has a very active imagination right now.

When she opens her eyes again he’s still staring at her, his eyes dark and shining. The expression on his face is one of adoration; he looks as though he’s seen an angel, and Rey wants to cry because she knows the angel is _her_. Pearlescent drops of cum cover his fist, and larger patterns dot his thighs. She pulls her hands out from under her skirt and lifts them to her nose, inhales. They smell musky, familiar, safe.

“Rey,” Ben breathes; it’s almost a sob, and he finally releases his cock and holds out his arms towards her.

“Oh, Ben,” she murmurs, and then she’s there, in his lap, and she’s gripping his hair in her fists and finally, _finally,_ kissing him the way she’s been wanting to. The way she’s always wanted to.

His lips are soft and plush and although he clearly isn’t an experienced kisser she can feel him learning as she leads him along, with sighs and nips and flicks of her tongue. His mouth is hot and tastes, inexplicably, of cotton candy. She holds his face while she devours him, and he wraps his arms around her, cupping her butt and pulling her close. She slides across the puddle of cum on his lap, and can’t help but shudder when her open cunt touches his cock. It’s still deflated from his orgasm, but as she rubs against it, moaning and cooing into his mouth, she can feel it twitch and swell, hardening beneath her trembling body. 

She pulls away and rips the dress over her head, and then does the same with Ben’s tee shirt. She takes a moment to admire his physique; his chest is broad and muscular, his abdominals well-defined. 

Rey runs her palms over his chest and down his stomach. 

“You use those free weights, don’t you,” she says, glancing up at him after taking full stock of the front of his body. His eyes meet hers immediately, boring into them, looking into her soul. She gazes back as he cups her breasts and pinches her nipples, and her back arches reflexively. She shifts her hips into him, rubbing her clit against his cock - it’s hard and hot again - and whining.

“I like to work out after you go to sleep,” he replies, his voice heavy and breathy. “You make me feel… I don’t know. Like I want to reach you but I just can’t. Doing weights helps.”

Rey chuckles, and shudders when he pinches her again.

“I feel it too,” she says around her whines. “But I’m right here. And so are you.”

Ben maintains eye contact as he lowers his face and takes her right breast into his mouth. She rubs herself against him harder and mewls as he sucks and nips and rolls his tongue around her nipple.

“_Please,_ Ben,” she moans, her hands fisting his hair again. “_Please_, I need you.” But instead of taking her hips and helping her onto his cock the way she wants, he releases her nipple with a _pop_ and pushes her back towards his knees.

“Not yet,” he murmurs, “I wanna touch you first. Show me how to make you come like you do.”

He holds her hip steady with his left hand and she takes his right hand and guides it between her legs. She touches his fingers to her clit and her lips, and shows him how she likes to be stroked, praising him with soft words when he gets it just right. After a few minutes of this she encourages him to reach back further, to tease her, to take the moisture and spread it around, and then to press inside with one single digit. She explains how to find her g-spot, and when he does she winces at the first stroke of his fingertip. After the third stroke she moans, and she can tell from the look in his eyes that he knows he has her.

Ben figures out that he can stroke her g-spot with his finger and her clit with his thumb, so he holds her in that soft vice and pushes her to the edge and holds her there. She doesn’t understand how he does it, and she allows it; she floats on that hair’s edge for what feels like hours but must only be a matter of a few minutes. The moment it becomes unbearable she says _please_ and she only has to say it once; he leads her over the edge, so gently. She’s aware she’s making noise but she can’t hear it. The entire time all Rey sees are the pools in Ben’s eyes, and all she feels are his fingers in her core and his hand on her hip, holding her still, keeping her safe. 

“You are so beautiful,” Ben whispers as he pulls his fingers out of her and lifts them up to her lips. Rey licks them first, and then he does, before wiping them off on the sheet.

He kisses her as she finishes coming down, and this time he’s the one fisting _her_ hair, nipping _her_ lips and licking into _her_ mouth before he wanders; his lips on her cheeks and chin and neck, passing briefly over her breasts, before making their lazy way back up to her mouth again. By then Rey has shifted her hips forward again, and her cunt has found his cock - still hard, and leaking precum that she picks up as she strokes herself around and over him. 

“Please,” she says once she’s found her voice, “please, I need you inside me,” and this time he allows it. They watch each other’s faces as Rey lifts herself up, and Ben helps align himself with her, and when she plunges his cock into her she can see the exquisite pain that she feels flit across his face. They breathe together, too, and she takes a moment to adjust to the breach before she shifts her knees and checks the angle and slowly, carefully, begins to move. 

It’s so different from the first time that Rey has trouble believing that it’s real. Ben is everywhere. His face is all she can see, his body all she can feel. Every part of him, every single one of his features, is entirely focused on her. He stares at her, as though he wants to take her all in and he just can’t get enough, and kisses her cheeks, occasionally flitting his tongue out so he can taste her skin. He buries his nose in her neck, breathing her in as though inhaling her very essence. His hands hold her hips at first, then move up to span her waist, and she’s amazed at how they can be so large and strong and yet hold her so tenderly, reverently. He reaches up further to stroke her back before moving back down to squeeze her thighs. His hands continue to make the slow rotation of her body as his face stays with her, and she rides his cock as slowly as she can, wanting to prolong whatever this is until she can’t take it and she has to speed up. As soon as she does he drops one hand between them and his thumb finds her clit and begins to circle it, just as she showed him earlier. Her own hands shift from his shoulders to his neck; she can feel the blood pumping through his jugular veins, and as she moves faster and his thumb becomes more intent and her heartbeat speeds up she can feel his body responding. 

When she comes it’s almost a shock; she squeezes her hands and cries out, and again she’s distressed to realize that she’s closed her eyes. 

When Rey finally opens them Ben has teared up; one is just beginning the slow trip down his cheek, a little trail of grey across his pale skin. He cradles Rey’s face and strokes his thumbs over her cheekbones.

“I felt it,” he says, his voice a reverent purr, “I felt you come. I felt it.”

“It was so good, Ben,” she murmurs. “You did that to me.” He hums and nuzzles against her cheek.

Rey came but Ben’s cock is still hard inside her; it’s a little distracting. She presses down on him and is gratified when he moans and his fingers squeeze her face, just a little bit. 

“You didn’t come.” She whines and wiggles, and he moves his hands down to her hips. 

“I didn’t,” he admits, holding her tight and thrusting up into her once, experimentally, and she squeals. “But I’d like to.”

She presses her lips together and places her palms on his chest, high enough that she can run her fingers over his collarbones, and rotates her hips.

“There is something I would like,” she says quietly. “Do you remember the other day? In my room?”

For the first time since they entered the bedroom, Ben looks away. His eyes focus on the floor next to the bed, and his cheeks flush, but not from desire. 

“You know that I do,” he mumbles, almost inaudibly.

“Hey,” she says, placing her hand on his cheek and forcing him to look at her. “Look, I didn’t want it like that then, but I want it now. I want _you_ now. So it’s okay, right?”

He works his jaw and nods. “Yeah.”

“I want you to do that again.”

“Rey, I-” 

“_Please_, Ben. Please, I want it so bad. I want you to hold me down, fuck me hard. I _like_ that, you know I do - I _know_ you know - and I want you to do it to me.” 

Rey knows that Ben knows, because Ben had admitted to following her to Poe’s house, to lurking outside and listening to them fuck, even if he didn’t watch. Ben should have a very good idea of what exactly it is that Rey likes.

Ben’s expression softens even as a distinct flicker of fear passes across his face. Rey tuts and strokes his hair as she continues her long, slow ride up and down his shaft. He stares into her eyes for several long moments before replying.

“Make me do it again,” he whispers. “Make me do it like you did before.”

“Make you do it like _that, _huh.” Rey remembers what she said before to get him going, and she is very happy to do it again. She flashes him a predatory grin and her hands return to his hair. He whimpers as she gathers it in fistfuls and tugs his head back, exposing his throat. She turns her head and holds his Adam's apple in her teeth, squeezing it until he yelps. With a laugh she lets go and she rides him more roughly and brings herself close to his face. His fingers grip around her hips, hard enough to bruise.

“I bet you came into my apartment when I wasn’t home.” Ben doesn’t answer but he whines, a deep and dirty sound straight from his chest, and she chooses to take that as confirmation. “You went through my closet, didn’t you. Fucking freak. Sniffed my dirty undies.”

Ben gurgles, it’s close to _yes_, and the thrusts of his hips suggest a rising storm. She needs to find his lightning rod.

“You’re disgusting, Ben. Going through my garbage, taking photos of me _masturbating,_ what the fuck. Painting-”

Nope. She loses her rhythm but only for a second before she finds it again. His fingers dig into the muscle of her hips; it hurts but she loves it.

“Creeping under the window while Poe fucked me like he owned me. You didn’t watch but I know you listened, you sick fuck. You listened while he spanked me and called me a _fucking whore_, made me come so hard I couldn’t s-”

With a roar Ben lifts Rey up and tosses her onto her back, his cock managing to stay in her body the whole trip. She squeaks in surprise but then she's speechless in the face of Ben's intensity. Unlike the last time, when he hid his face in the crook of her neck, now he holds her by the hair and stares into her face.

“Poe made you come,” he growls, “but I love you.”

Rey is almost frozen in the intensity of his gaze.

"You are so fucking beautiful," he continues. "Like a garden, or the sun. You're an angel. _Fuck_. Goddess. My goddess."

The words coming out of his mouth conflict with the animalistic tone in his voice, with the punishing pace of his thrusts, but somehow it works. She can't take her eyes off him 

"God, Rey, you’re fucking perfect. You make me wish I were a poet. Your hair is softer than down, your skin is like rose petals."

"_Fuck_," she moans, snaking her right hand down her body towards where Ben is pummeling into her. He grabs her left calf and heaves it up to her shoulder. The stretch of the muscles burns, and the move opens her up and allows him even deeper access. She doesn't think anyone has ever been so deep in her before and her vision blurs with the exquisite pleasure-pain. Her fingers find her clit and he's growling again.

“Fuck, Rey, I can feel you again. I can feel you, don’t stop, come on, come with me.” He pushes into her one last time, as deeply as he can, and Rey comes with a garbled scream, pulling Ben right along with her. This time her eyes remain open, and she watches Ben come with her. She watches the pleasure flit across his face, his eyebrows rising, his mouth open and crying out her name, and then the relaxation at the end, his smile, how he leans in to kiss her cheek, and then her mouth, and they are together.

He pulls out and uses his tee shirt to clean them both up, and then they lie together quietly for a while. It’s too early to sleep, and Rey doesn’t want to sleep anyway, so after a while she gets up and takes another look at the printouts covering the wall. There are so many memories here, good ones and bad ones, and she tells Ben some of the good stories and a few of the bad ones, too. He’s cropped Poe out of the photos - there’s no Poe to be seen at all - and this makes Rey happy. How easy it was to cut him out of her life after all. 

The printouts are impressive but the watercolors are her favorite. She praises them, tells him how well done they are, how she loves the color palettes and the lighting, and he glows with pride and tells her it was easy because he had such a beautiful subject. He’s able to tell her the date and circumstances of each one - some of them are from visits she barely remembers herself - and for reasons she doesn’t understand this turns her on, and very soon they are fucking again.

This time she’s on her knees, leaning against the wall, face-to-face with one of the printouts from the security camera that Ben touched up with a bit of color on the cheeks and lips. She misses looking into his eyes but he’s whispering into her ear instead, telling her how beautiful she is, how good she feels, how he wants to lay her out on a bed of flowers and massage her feet and feed her chocolates and her brain tells her that _this is ridiculous_ but her body loves it and his fingers are playing close to her clit and she thinks she might have another orgasm soon.

Only she doesn’t. Very suddenly Ben moves both of his hands down between her legs, grips one inner thigh with each hand, and pulls her back and up, so her knees are off the mattress.

“Hey!” She yells. She won’t fall because she’s still pretty much pressed against the wall, but she’s afraid of pulling down the beautiful printouts as she scrambles for purchase. He doesn’t respond, just thrusts into her quickly several times and then one last time, deeply, and groans. 

“Fuck you!” Rey shouts. Annoyed, she attempts to wriggle out of Ben’s grasp, but he’s strong and holds her tight until she stops moving.

“Thank you,” he whispers in her ear, setting her down. She whimpers as he pulls his softening cock out of her. “I’m sorry about that, but I had an idea. Can you stay like this?” He shifts her right knee a couple of inches further out, and his cum starts to drip out and run down her thigh.

“I guess.” She sounds petulant but she probably doesn’t care.

When he starts placing kisses down her spine she has an idea of what he might be up to, and when he reaches her lower back and keeps going she is convinced she’s right. His lips reach her ass, and then instead of his lips she feels his tongue, hot and wet, teasing at the top of her crack.

“Is this okay?” he asks quietly. “If I use my tongue here?” She shudders and nods, a gutteral _uh huh_, and he continues his slow movement, licking down her crack, pausing to tease her puckered hole. Nobody has ever put their mouth on her there, and it’s so sweet and intimate, so _Ben_, it’s almost enough to bring her to tears. But he doesn’t linger, very soon he’s moving further down until he reaches the very edge of her cunt. At this point he draws away, but she only misses his heat for a moment before he’s on his back with his head tucked between her legs.

She hears him hum, followed by a quiet _ahhhh_, and then he’s licking the crease at the top of her leg, down her thighs. He catches all the cum that’s already dripped out of her, and then he presses his mouth fully against her cunt and sucks and tongues out what’s still left. He licks and sucks and uses his thumbs to massage her lips and tease her clit, and she pretty much forgives him for coming inside her. 

It’s as good as it was the first time - maybe even better, because this time they both want it in a way they didn’t before. She comes hard, and fast, and then she comes again. After she comes the third time she’s ready to stop, and she tells Ben to stop, but he doesn’t. He holds her hips tightly, presses her cunt against his mouth and he sucks her clit while his tongue strokes her too-sensitive skin. She cries and writhes and pulls his hair, begs him to stop, but when she realizes that another orgasm is there, and that she can reach it, she begs him to keep going, tells him he’s good, the best, the best she’s had, and she wants him to keep going, so he does. 

When Rey finally comes on his face for the fourth time it’s physically painful but so good, and she stays leaning against the wall, wiping her tears on her arms, until Ben gathers her up and lays her on the bed, wrapped in his arms and a soft black blanket. She’s curled up, her back against his chest, and she’s relaxed and warm and safe and, maybe, a little bit happy.

“Rey?” Ben’s voice vibrates against her back.

Rey, floating close to sleep, floats a bit further away. “Hm?” 

“It isn’t so dreadful here, is it?”

She smiles. “That’s a strange word, _dreadful_. Full of dread. No, it’s not dreadful here. I like it here, with you.”

“Good,” he says, giving her a squeeze. “So tomorrow we’ll tell Finn that he can go, and we’ll stay.”

Rey is suddenly much more awake, and she wiggles to turn to face him. He’s smiling at her.

“No,” she says. “I want to go.”

His face falls.

“You want to _go?_ But you just said-”

“I said I like being here with _you,_ Ben. I won’t go without you, but I’m gonna go.”

“You want to go.” He stares at her, disbelieving.

“I want _us_ to go.”

His face falls further, but she presses forward. “I want to _fight,_ Ben. I want to learn how to shoot a big gun and I want to kill as many of those fucking aliens as I can. And I want you to be there to protect me.”

“Protect you?”

She rolls her eyes. “Duh. Ben, what would you do if somebody tried to hurt me? Really hurt me.”

“I’d kill them.” He says it quickly, like he doesn’t even have to think about it. He looks surprised; she smiles and winds a lock of Ben’s soft, dark hair around one of her fingers.

“See?” She says, giving the hair a tug before letting it loose and selecting another lock to give the same treatment. “Big gun, strong guy like you, I won’t even have to shoot any aliens myself.”

“Rey,” he sighs. “You saw that thing, right? Can you imagine a dozen of those things, attacking at once? A hundred? And there’s only three of us. Who knows how many people will actually go to Houston, if we can even get there. Please.” He reaches for her. “Please stay.”

“I can’t STAY HERE!” Rey doesn’t realize she’s shouting until she’s doing it, up on her knees and yelling at Ben, who stares up at her, part frightened, part bewildered, and very, very unhappy. She punches her fists in the air. “I _can’t_. I miss outside. I miss the sun. I miss hiking. I fucking hate hiking, but it’s all I want to do now! The flowers… the flowers are great, they are, but it’s not the same. There’s no wind, no _air_. It smells funny, even the flowers smell funny. It’s always light down here, these awful fluorescent lights. I want _stars_, and the moon and the sun. I hate it underground. The only thing I like about being down here is you, but if we stay I’m afraid I’ll start to hate that, too.” She stops when she notices the tears on his face; she lies back down and kisses him, wipes his tears away with her fingers.

“I want you to be safe,” he whispers once they’re settled again, tracing his finger down her nose, “and I know you’ll be safe down here.”

"I want to fight so we can be safe up there."

He's quiet. She keeps pushing.

"Am I the only thing keeping you here? If you were alone and Finn asked you to go fight, would you go?"

He offers a half shrug. "Probably."

“Okay. Do you want me to be happy?”

It takes him a while to answer, and when he does he looks miserable. “Yes.”

“I can’t be happy here."

He's staring at her again. The eyeliner is mostly worn away but that does nothing to detract from the beauty of his eyes or their intensity.

"I would do anything for you, Rey," he murmurs eventually, back to stroking her cheeks.

"What would you do?"

"I would remake the world for you." He whispers as though imparting a terrible secret, and maybe he is. "Kill your enemies and set their heads on pikes. _Fuck_. I'll kill Finn, if you ask me to, right now. I’ll strangle him while he sleeps in your bed. Slice his throat so you can drink-"

Ben's words are terrible and beautiful and exactly what Rey wants, and she cuts him off with a kiss before he can release any more magic. She rewards him with her body, even though she’s sore, and neither of them say anything else for a while.

Some time later Ben shifts so he won’t crush her and they lie like that for a long time. Ben's hair is soft and Rey enjoys the way it feels as she runs her fingers through it, weaving it into little braids before taking them out and doing it again. While she does that Ben hums and draws patterns across her skin, punctuating them with kisses and sweet strokes with the tip of his nose. After several minutes Ben clears his throat.

"I read an article, when I was doing my research, that said women should, uh, pee after sex."

"Mmhmm," Rey confirms. "Keeps us from getting UTIs. Urinary tract infections."

He's quiet, and when she glances down at his face, his head tucked into her shoulder, gazing up at her innocently, eyebrows raised, she can't help but giggle.

"You're saying you want me to go pee?"

"I don't want you to get an infection."

"Okay. That's probably a good idea." She sighs dramatically and sits up. She can feel his cum leaking out of her with the movement, and even though she's exhausted and in pain a spot of warmth blooms in her tummy.

Ben gets up too and Rey admires his naked form as he digs into bin on the other side of the room. He comes back with a lilac terrycloth robe, soft and thick. It smells of dryer sheets.

"Just in case?" She teases as he helps her shrug it on. He smiles and pushes her towards the door.

"I'm gonna wash too, I'll be right behind you."

She kisses his cheek and hobbles out into the living room.

"Hey."

Finn is lurking in the storage hallway. It's dark there, and her mind is occupied, so she doesn't notice him until she's at the bathroom door and he finally speaks.

"Hey, Finn. I thought you'd be asleep by now."

"I can hear you through the air vent. Y'all are loud, makes it hard to sleep." His words sound like he's making a joke but his tone is serious, and his expression is grim.

“You heard us?”

“Just noises, really. I can’t hear words, if that’s what you’re afraid of.”

He's removed his fatigues, leaving him dressed in black boxer briefs and a white undershirt. His feet are bare. His crossed arms draw attention to his biceps, which are thick and meaty. His thighs are thick, too. He takes a step closer, and Rey flinches. He freezes and holds his hands out.

"I'm cool. It's cool." His voice softens, more friendly, and his face softens too, his eyebrows drawn together in an expression of concern. "Are you okay?"

Rey pulls the collar of the robe together at her throat. "What do you mean?"

"I mean," Finn takes a step closer, lowering his voice to a whisper, "you being here with Ben. I’m not _blind_. That act you put on earlier? Your dress, the mural in the bedroom, that fucking flower garden in the grow room? He’s like, _making_ you-”

“_You,_” Rey spits, leaning towards him, “assume a lot. He’s not making me do _anything_.”

Finn rolls his eyes. “Look, he has a reputation, okay? I like him, I really do, but when he was in High School he had a crush on this girl, a friend of my sister’s, and he was just really... weird about it, I guess. He followed her around and stuff, broke into her locker, and it creeped her out. Her dad ended up calling his Grandpa and after that it was better but-"

"Finn?"

"Yeah?"

Rey takes a breath, her hands clenched under her chin. "I don’t know you. Maybe everybody has always loved you. Maybe you just go about life with people falling for your charm or whatever. But it's not that easy for some of us." She walks towards him as she's talking, and she's gratified that he backs away from her, backs so far that he runs into the shelf behind him. It makes her feel powerful. She releases her right hand so she can point in his face. "It's not so terrible to have someone in your life who will do anything for you. I'm fucking lucky I ended up here with him, and fuck you for saying anything against him."

"Rey, that's not-"

She presses her finger against his chest.

"You, people like you. You think you know me, but you don't. _He_ knows me. _He_ understands me."

She takes a step back and lowers her hand. She's so tired.

"Go to bed. We'll see you in the morning."

Finn starts to say something else but without another glance Rey steps into the bathroom and closes the door behind her.

* * *

When they wake up in the morning, Finn is gone. He'd made himself breakfast and cleaned up, leaving his dishes on the drainboard, and stripped the bed in Rey’s room and folded the sheets and blankets neatly at the foot. Rey cries on the sofa while Ben throws a tantrum, yelling and swearing and kicking the walls and the furniture.

It isn't until he goes out to make sure the van is really gone that they discover Finn left them a gift. Ben pulls the weapons and ammo out of the duffle bag Finn left for them at the top of the ladder a piece at a time and lays them out on the table and Rey reads the note again.

"I don't know what he was thinking, just leaving these like that," Ben said, picking up one of the rifles and setting it right back down. "I have no idea how to use any of this."

"Poe took me to a shooting range once, so I know a little, but yeah. This is a lot." She sets down the note and eyes the instruction manuals, worn and battered, that Finn left along with the guns. "Did you check to make sure he really filled up the gas tank?"

Ben laughs humorlessly. "No way, I wasn't going to go outside by myself. But he parked it right by the door, and he left the key with the guns. Guess I’m glad I left the spare key behind the counter after all.” He holds it up, dangles it so she can see it. “I bought this keyring to remind me of you.” 

Rey grins as he drops it into her hand: a metal daisy, enamel on one side and shiny silver on the other.

"Thanks," she says. There's no pocket in the sundress she's wearing today - kelly green with rows of vegetables designed to look like a garden - so she sets it on the table and picks up a rifle. "No better time than the present, I guess."

Ben sighs and takes up a rifle for himself. "Target practice?"

"For a while. Hopefully we'll be confident enough to leave in a few days."

Ben heads to the door. "I hope Finn makes it."

"Me too."

“Maybe we’ll find him in Houston.”

“Maybe.”

They sling the rifles over their shoulders and climb up together towards the sun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Say goodbye to our lovebirds! I hope they find happiness and joy with their semiautomatic rifles. Will they kill all the aliens? Will they make it to Houston? Will they meet Finn again? I sure hope so on all counts. (Hey, I ship Finnreylo, there are _so many options_ I can think of for how that might end up going down hahaha)
> 
> On to my thank yous, I have so many people to thank! First of all thank you Amanda/LonelyLavenderBones for the prompt, I never would have come up with this without her. I had so much fun mashing up 10 Cloverfield Lane and Hades and Persephone - Amanda, I hope you had fun reading it too 🌺🌺🌺
> 
> Thank you flypaper_brain for the beta. She betas pretty much everything I write, and everything I write is better for it, including "it is (not) so dreadful here." She's also a wonderful person and a great friend. (She recently had a birthday and I wrote a little something for her, along with some art by Persimonne. If you want to read about Rey fucking a mushroom, [click on over here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18807073/chapters/51662098), and wish fly a happy birthday too!) 🍄🍄🍄
> 
> Thank you to the ladies in the Reylo After Dark Discord, you're my best friends and my biggest enablers and I love you all. I can't wait to see what you come up with next!! 🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤
> 
> Finally THANK YOU - YES, YOU! - for reading and commenting! It's been so gratifying to see how many people are reading and enjoying this little story, thank you for all your kudos and comments! It's helped me want to keep writing and finish the story. 💕💕💕💕
> 
> If you enjoyed this please check out my other stories, I write a ton in various genres and pairings (mostly reylo, finnlo, and finnreylo) and I'd love to know what you think about those.
> 
> Take care everybody! And the next time the emergency alert goes off on your phone CHECK IT.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from "A Prayer to Persephone" by Edna St. Vincent Millay
> 
> Be to her, Persephone,  
All the things I might not be;  
Take her head upon your knee.  
She that was so proud and wild,  
Flippant, arrogant and free,  
She that had no need of me,  
Is a little lonely child  
Lost in Hell,—Persephone,  
Take her head upon your knee;  
Say to her, “My dear, my dear,  
It is not so dreadful here.”


End file.
